LIBRARY 

University  of   California 

IRVINE 


PERCOLATOR 
PAPERS 


BOOKS  BY 
ELLWOOD  HENDRICK 

PERCOLATOR  PAPERS 
OPPORTUNITIES  IN  CHEMISTRY 
EVERYMAN'S  CHEMISTRY 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 
ESTABLISHED   1817 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

••§••1 

BY 

ELLWOOD 
HENDRICK 


A  CKNOWLEDGMENT  is  made  to  The  Atlantic 
**  Monthly  Co.  for  leave  to  print  the  following 
essays  which  appeared  originally  in  The  Atlantic 
Monthly :  The  Sense  of  Smell,  The  Human  Satura- 
tion Point,  A  Plea  for  Materialism,  Adventures  in 
Philosophy,  Precision's  English,  Hindsight,  Living 
Caricatures,  Waste,  Science  in  the  Humanities,  Why 
Not  ?  Woman's  Honor,  The  Price  of  Anger,  Dorinda'a 
Joy, 'and  Social  Spot  Cash', 

To  Harper  &  Brothers  for  permission  to  include 
The  Chemists  of  the  Future  from  Harper's  Magazine, 
and  CsHsOH,  printed  long  ago  in  Harper's  Weekly ; 

To  The  North  American  Review  for  the  same 
privilege  in  regard  to  Saul  of  Tarsus ; 

To  The  Chemist's  Club  for  A.  D.  2000,  The  Pro- 
fessor Emeritus  Talks,  and  At  the  Club,  printed  in 
its  bulletin,  The  Percolator,  and 

To  the  Corporation  of  St.  George's  Church  for 
Just  a  Tramp  and  The  Great  Puppet  Show,  which 
appeared  in  The  Magnet. 

E.  H. 


PERCOLATOR  PAPERS 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  August,  1918 

G-T 


TO 
J.    P.    H. 

FOR  A   MILLION   REASONS 


CONTENTS 


A.D.  2000      .............  1 

THE  SENSE  OF  SMELL    .......  3 

THE  HUMAN  SATURATION  POINT      .     .  20 

THE  ROAD   TO   ARCADY       ......  27 

A  PLEA  FOR  MATERIALISM    .....  42 

ADVENTURES  IN  PHILOSOPHY: 

I.  A  LITTLE  HOMILY  ON  THE  TRUTH  .   .  62 

II.  THE  GREEN  TREE  ........  65 

III.  THE  BLUE  TREE  .  .  -   ......  76 

IV.  THE  GOD  IN  THE  MACHINE   ....  79 

V.  INTO  THE  UNKNOWN   .......  83 

PRECISION'S  ENGLISH      .......  91 

HINDSIGHT    ............  98 

LIVING  CARICATURES      .......  105 

CaH5OH     ..............  113 

WASTE    ..............  119 

SCIENCE  IN  THE  HUMANITIES      ...  128 

WHY   NOT?      ............  154 

JUST  A  TRAMP      ..........  163 

WOMAN'S  HONOR      .........  169 

SAUL  OF  TARSUS      .........  173 

THE   PRICE  OF  ANGER    .......  190 

THE   CHEMISTS  OF  THE   FUTURE      .     .  199 

THE  PROFESSOR  EMERITUS  TALKS       .  229 

DORINDA'S  JOY  234 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

AT  THE   CLUB 238 

SOCIAL  SPOT   CASH 242 

THE  GREAT  PUPPET-SHOW 248 

AFTERWORD  254 


PERCOLATOR 
PAPERS 


A.D.  2000 

Without,  a  doubt  both  you  and  I 
Will  be  considered,  by  and  by, 
As  very  odd  and  very  queer 
By  all  the  people  living  here. 

The  way  we  speak,  the  way  we  dress, 
The  pleasures  of  our  idleness 
They'll  ridicule  without  restraint 
And  think  us  very,  very  quaint. 

The  things  in  which  we  pride  ourselves 
To  the  historian  who  delves 
In  early  twentieth  century 
Witt  seem  such  empty  vanity! 

The  way  we  struggle,  fight,  and  strive. 
The  stratagems  whereby  we  thrive, 
The  things  we  hope  for  and  desire 
Will  not  be  what  they  most  admire. 

Odd  and  archaic  we  shall  be; 
They'll  say  we  lived  so  curiously, 
They'll  wonder  at  our  negligence 
And  why  we  hadn't  better  sense. 

[1] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 


THE    SENSE    OF    SMELL 

IT  is  remarkable  how  intimate  the  sense  of 
smell  is,  how  much  it  tells  us  and  how 
largely  it  affects  consciousness  on  the  one 
hand  and  how  we  scorn  consideration  of  it 
on  the  other.  It  is  the  Cinderella  of  our  organs 
of  sense.  Whether  it  was  some  sainted  ancho- 
rite, or  other  enthusiast  of  imagination  and 
influence  who  found  the  use  of  the  human 
nose  to  be  dangerous  to  the  soul,  we  do  not 
know,  but  in  some  way  or  other  the  conscious 
exercise  of  the  nose  became  taboo,  and  this  has 
entered  into  the  folk-ways.  It  has  ceased  to 
be  a  sin,  but  it  remains  an  impolite  subject. 

The  Arabs  in  their  days  of  glory  were  not 
ashamed  of  their  noses,  and  they  planted 
scented  gardens,  wonderfully  devised,  so  that 
he  who  walked  through  them  or  whiled  away 
an  hour  there  might  rejoice  in  a  cultured 
delight  in  odor.  They  were  arranged  so  that 
at  the  entrance  the  olfactory  sense  would  be 
[3] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

struck  by  a  pervading  and  strong  smell,  not 
necessarily  of  a  pleasant  nature.  From  this 
the  path  would  lead  gradually  through  less 
coarse  fragrances  to  those  more  delicate,  until 
at  the  end  there  would  be  reached  an  odor  of 
exquisite  quality  which  only  the  cultured  nose 
could  appreciate. 

Now  that  we  are  by  ourselves  hi  a  book  let 
us  £ast  aside  convention  and  talk  about  it. 
Every  one  of  us  has  his  or  her  own  odor,  as 
distinct  and  personal  as  are  our  countenances. 
Every  dog  knows  this  and,  unless  his  olfactory- 
organs  are  atrophied,  he  makes  good  use  of  it. 
We  constantly  exude  products  of  metabolism, 
and  in  the  composition  of  these  products  we  all 
differ.  Not  only  do  we  differ  from  one  another, 
but  in  no  individual  are  these  products  con- 
stant. No  chemical  laboratory  is  equipped  to 
distinguish  these  minute  differences,  and,  so 
far  as  the  writer  is  aware,  the  subject  is  still 
unstudied — except  by  dogs.  They,  with  their 
highly  developed  olfactory  organs,  are  impelled 
by  curiosity  to  confirm  their  vision  when  they 
meet  their  master,  and  they  make  a  long  and 
searching  nose  investigation  of  him,  clearly 
with  a  view  to  finding  out  more  than  their 
eyes  will  tell  them.  We  note,  too,  that  dog/ 
which  follow  the  scent  closely  are  likely  occa- 
sionally to  go  into  a  mephitic  debauch  with  a 
[4] 


decayed  fish  or  any  other  substance  of  similar 
pungency,  to  "clean  their  scent."  That,  after 
filling  their  nostrils  with  agony  of  that  sort, 
they  should  find  them  in  better  working  order 
is  an  idea  that  does  not  seem  reasonable,  and 
yet  the  method  is  probably  a  good  one,  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  Arabs  planted  flowers  of 
pungent  and  coarse  odor  at  the  entrances  to 
their  scented  gardens. 

The  theory  of  smell  as  given  is  very  vague; 
there  is  a  presumable  impact  of  particles  upon 
the  sensitive  regions  of  the  nose  which,  in  some 
way,  is  supposed  to  stimulate  nerve  reaction. 
Good  work  has  been  done,  but  not  enough; 
and  enough  will  not  be  done  until  there  obtains 
a  lively  and  wholesome  curiosity  about  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  what  illuminat- 
ing researches  are  available  in  regard  to  sound 
and  light!  As  an  instance  of  the  comparative 
attention  devoted  to  these  subjects,  one  has 
but  to  open  a  book  of  reference  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica.  In 
the  last  edition  of  this  work  over  twenty-two 
pages  are  devoted  to  sound,  sixteen  to  light, 
and  but  a  page  and  a  half  to  smell. 

Just  think  what  we  owe  to  our  eyes  and  ears! 
Through  them  we  gain  nearly  all  of  our  knowl- 
edge. They  are  trained  so  that  by  them  we 
read  books  and  hear  speeches;  we  note  anger, 
2  [5] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

deceit,  joy,  love;  by  sight  and  hearing  we  try 
to  guess  faithfulness  and  malice;  in  fact, 
through  these  two  senses  we  draw  the  sub- 
stance of  our  information.  And  yet  we  are 
said  to  have  five  senses.  Neither  touch  nor 
hearing  nor  sight  is  within  the  scope  of  this 
paper,  and  taste  is  a  limited  sense,  alive  only 
to  sweet,  sour,  bitter,  and  a  few  simple  nerve 
reactions.  Owing  to  the  taboo  of  smell,  we 
have  credited  to  taste  most  of  those  olfactory 
processes  which  we  have  cultivated.  It  is  the 
smell  of  good  food  that  we  enjoy  while -we  are 
eating  it;  it  is  the  bouquet  of  wine  that  gives 
it  its  merit.  We  call  it  the  taste,  but  it  is 
chiefly  the  smell.  It  is  nearly  impossible,  for 
instance,  to  distinguish  between  what  we  call 
the  taste  of  cinnamon  and  that  of  cloves  if  we 
hold  our  noses. 

So  here  is  this  organ,  equipped  for  the  acqui- 
sition of  knowledge,  as  complex  as  the  human 
eye,  entering  into  the  most  active  part  of  the 
brain,  and  we,  marveling  at  the  wonderful 
advances  of  human  knowledge,  neglect  it, 
scorn  it,  politely  deny  that  there  even  is  such  a 
thing  as  an  individual  odor  to  ourselves  and 
our  friends.  We  remain  more  ignorant  than 
a  dog  about  it.  And  yet,  despite  this  neglect, 
it  is  always  active.  This  must  be  true,  else 
it  would  not  be  such  an  aid  to  memory  as  it  is. 
[61 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

I  remember  once,  long  ago,  I  employed  a 
chemist  to  make  a  certain  product  that  he 
had  worked  out  in  a  factory  under  my  charge. 
He  demonstrated  it  in  the  laboratory  and  then 
proceeded,  in  the  works,  to  prepare  a  few  hun- 
dred pounds  in  some  tanks  and  apparatus  at 
hand.  At  this  point  it  developed  that  the 
process  was  in  conflict  with  certain  patents 
and  that  we  could  not  continue  without  infring- 
ing upon  rights  of  others  that  were  already 
established.  So  the  whole  thing  was  given  up 
and  that  was  an  end  to  it. 

At  the  time  I  was  intensely  engaged  in  other 
problems,  and,  aside  from  occasionally  visiting 
the  chemist  while  at  work,  I  had  but  little  to 
do  with  it.  Shortly  after  that  the  works  passed 
into  other  hands  and  I  quitted  the  practice 
of  chemistry  and  went  into  business.  Ten 
years  elapsed,  during  which  time  I  had  been 
out  of  practice  and  wholly  out  of  the  thought 
of  the  process  in  question.  Then  I  was  informed 
that  a  chemical  manufacturer  was  anxious  to 
see  me  in  regard  to  some  patent  litigation  in 
which  he  was  engaged.  I  feared  I  could  not 
help  him;  I  said  I  had  forgotten  everything  I 
knew,  but  that  if  he  wanted  to  see  me  I  should 
be  glad  to  meet  him.  He  explained  his  problem 
and  asked  me  about  that  process.  I  could  not 
remember  a  thing.  He  suggested  that  we  go 
17] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

through  his  factory,  which  we  did.  "Hello!" 
I  said.  "Here  is  some  beta  naphthol!  What 
lovely  figures  it  makes!"  And  I  dipped  my 
fingers  into  the  water  in  which  it  was  in  sus- 
pension and  stirred  it  around,  watching  the 
shining  scales.  Then  I  removed  my  hand 
and  smelled  of  my  fingers.  In  an  instant  I 
shouted,  "Now  I  remember  that  process!" 
and  proceeded  to  relate  it  to  him  in  detail. 
Beta  naphthol  had  been  one  of  the  materials 
used  in  it. 

If,  when  you  went  to  school  as  a  child,  you 
carried  a  tin  lunch-box  which  often  contained, 
let  us  say,  some  gingerbread  and  sandwiches 
and  perhaps  an  apple,  it  is  worth  while  to  take 
a  sniff  at  such  a  box  again  now.  It  is  sur- 
prising how  this  simple  experiment  may  recall 
the  patter  of  long-forgotten  feet  and  the 
memory  of  childish  voices  that  startle  over  the 
lapse  of  many  years. 

These  flashes  of  memory  aided  by  sense  of 
smell  are  wonderful.  Through  smell  we  achieve 
a  sense  of  the  past;  the  secret  members  of  the 
mind  are  roused  to  life  and  memory.  What  a 
pity  that  we  waste  this  talent! 

Again,  how  often  it  occurs  that  we  see  a 

friend  or  acquaintance  and  exclaim:    "How 

strange!     I  was  thinking  of  you  less  than  a 

minute  ago."    In  point  of  fact,  we  have  prob- 

[8] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

ably  smelled  him.  Smell  may  also  be  the 
reason  why  we  like  some  people  and  dislike 
others.  I  may  want  to  introduce  some  one 
to  you  because  you  have  many  interests  in 
common  and  may  tell  each  other  things  you 
both  want  to  know.  But  as  soon  as  you  meet 
you  will  have  none  of  him;  you  know  he  is 
honest,  of  good  repute,  and  admirable  in  a 
thousand  ways,  but  as  for  you,  you  are  in 
great  distress  when  he  is  around,  and  you  are 
glad  when  he  goes  away.  If  you  are  of  kindly 
disposition  and  fair-minded,  you  are  probably 
annoyed  with  yourself  for  your  prejudice;  if 
you  are  a  bumptious  brother  and  selfish,  you 
probably  attribute  some  imaginary  vice  or 
evil  to  him  by  way  of  excusing  yourself.  In 
both  instances  it  may  be  that  you  do  not 
like  the  smell  of  him,  although  you  do  not 
know  it.  You  see,  we  are  ignorant  in  our 
noses — more  ignorant  than  savages  or  even 
animals;  we  are  very  low  in  the  scale  of  intel- 
ligence in  this  respect,  and  we  respond  to  the 
olfactory  reactions  unconsciously.  Notwith- 
standing our  crass  ignorance,  the  noses  are  still 
there,  and  we  all  really  do  produce  odors 
despite  our  frequent  bathing.  Varnishing  the 
skin  to  close  the  openings  of  the  sweat-glands 
would  be  the  only  way  to  put  a  stop  to  in- 
dividuality of  odor,  and  this  has  never  been 
[9] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

recommended  as  an  aid  to  cleanliness  or  to 
health. 

Let  us  suppose  the  subject  were  not  taboo 
and  the  good  old  Saxon  word  stink,  which 
bears  about  the  same  relation  to  odor  that 
noise  does  to  sound,  were  not  almost  unprint- 
able— and  suppose  we  really  used  our  noses 
with  consciousness  and  diligence.  There  would 
be  Americas  to  discover,  and  life  would  be 
marvelously  augmented!  Of  course,  as  soon 
as  we  begin  to  consider  the  subject  we  find 
ourselves  wholly  at  sea.  There  are  no  stand- 
ards. Out  of  the  awful  chaos  in  which  we 
wallow  we  can  possibly  find  a  few  intimations, 
but  we  cannot  put  them  down  as  rules.  Thus 
it  would  seem  that,  in  watching  the  order  of 
nature,  the  olfactory  phenomena  of  creation 
or  reproduction  seem  to  be  agreeable  and  hence 
desirable,  and  those  of  dissolution  are  likely 
to  be  disagreeable.  So  the  flowers  which 
precede  the  seed-time  of  plants  are  likely  to 
produce  in  the  nose  a  sense  of  pleasure.  They 
attract  bees  and  insects  which  are  useful  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  species,  but  they  attract  us 
also,  and  the  cause  of  our  attraction  is  presum- 
ably the  same.  Ben  Jonson,  when  he  sang  to 
his  mistress  of  the  rosy  wreath  which  she  sent 
him,  that  "it  grows  and  smells,  I  swear,  not 
of  itself,  but  thee,"  knew  what  he  was  writing. 
[10] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

It  may  be,  indeed  it  is  probable,  that  the  close 
relation  of  smell  to  sex  phenomena  is  what 
caused  the  taboo.  But  there  is  a  spirit  abroad 
nowadays  to  search  the  truth,  with  the  growing 
belief  that  it  is  well  for  humanity  to  adjust 
itself  to  the  demands  of  that  spirit.  The 
search  for  the  truth,  we  are  beginning  to  think, 
is  a  wholesome  occupation. 

That  the  phenomena  of  disintegration  are 
unpleasant  we  know  too  well;  in  fact,  we  more 
than  know  it;  we  have  made  a  convention  of  it. 
To  make  certain  we  have  put  a  social  taboo 
upon  nearly  every  odor  except  those  of  fruits 
and  flowers.  We  almost  blush  in  passing  a 
barn-yard,  and  I  have  heard  a  skunk  referred  to 
as  a  "little  black-and-white  animal,"  to  avoid 
the  inelegance  of  calling  his  odor  to  mind.  Oh, 
we  are  exquisite!  There's  no  doubt  of  that, 
even  if  we  are  vastly  ignorant.  Refinements  of 
this  sort  are  of  weight  in  aiding  us  to  make  vain 
distinctions  between  ourselves  and  those  peo- 
ple whom  we  regard  as  vulgar  and  common, 
but  they  do  not  aid  us  in  the  search  for  wisdom. 

Now,  many  of  the  processes  of  disintegration 
are  unpleasant  and  they  serve  as  warnings, 
but  the  best  of  us  does  not  put  his  handker- 
chief to  his  eyes  if  he  sees  an  unpleasant  sight, 
or  stop  his  ears  if  he  hears  a  cry  of  pain.  The 
best  of  us  listens  to  hear  where  the  trouble  is, 
[HI 


and  hastens  to  help  if  he  can.  But  when  we 
smell  a  disagreeable  odor  we  usually  get  up 
and  run  away.  It  is  all  we  know  how  to  do. 
And  every  unpleasant  odor  is  by  no  means  a 
sign  of  danger  or  even  of  organic  disintegra- 
tion. Some  entirely  harmless  products  are 
dreadful  beyond  description  in  their  odor, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  aroma  of  prussic 
acid  and  a  number  of  other  virulent  poisons 
is  delightful. 

But  the  field  is  far  wider  than  these  quali- 
fications of  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness, 
and  we  shall  only  baffle  research  if  we  wed 
ourselves  to  empirical  rules  before  they  have 
been  tested  out. 

Sir  William  Ramsay,  whose  ever  young 
enthusiasm  led  him  into  so  many  of  the  secret 
gardens  of  nature,  found  a  relation  between 
odor  and  molecular  weight,  and  J.  B.  Hay  craft 
has  pointed  out  what  appears  to  be  a  cousin- 
ship  of  odors  that  accords  with  the  periodic 
law;  another  notes  that  odorous  substances 
seem  to  be  readily  oxidized;  and  Tyndall 
showed  that  many  odorous  vapors  have  a  con- 
siderable power  of  absorbing  heat.  Some 
work  has  been  done  in  German,  French,  and 
Italian  laboratories  to  discover  the  nature  of 
the  phenomenon  of  smell,  but  very  little  that 
is  definite  has  been  brought  out;  only  here  and 
[12] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

there  a  few  facts;  and  nobody  seems  to  want 
to  know  them. 

And  yet  the  scientific  possibilities  are  very 
fascinating,  even  if  they  are  bewildering.  For 
instance,  it  appears  that  the  sensitive  region 
of  either  nostril  is  provided  with  a  great  num- 
ber of  olfactory  nerve  cells  embedded  in  the 
epithelium.  The  olfactory  cells  are  also  con- 
nected by  nerves  which  extend  to  the  brain. 
Well,  what  happens  when  we  smell  anything? 
The  olfactory  nerve  cells  are  surrounded  by  a 
liquid.  What  is  the  nature  of  that  liquid? 
Do  the  particles  which  we  assume  to  be  the 
cause  of  olfactory  phenomena  dissolve  in  it? 
If  they  do — and  here  we  pray  thee,  oh,  great 
Arrhenius,  come  help  us! — does  dissociation 
take  place,  and  are  there  smell  ions?  That  is, 
do  fractions  of  the  molecules  of  those  bodies 
that  give  odor  dissociate  themselves  from  the 
rest  and  ride  in  an  electric  current  to  the 
nerves?  What  do  they  do  when  they  get 
there? 

Let  us  try  again.  The  ends  of  the  nerves 
must  be  covered  with  some  sort  of  membrane. 
Here  is  where  osmosis  may  come  in. 

Osmosis  is  the  gentle  art 
Whereby,  as  you  should  know, 

A  substance  sidesteps  to  the  place 
Where  it  would  like  to  go. 
[13] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

Somehow  it  would  seem  that  the  particles 
that  produce  the  sensation  of  smell  must  get 
through  those  membranes  at  the  ends  of  the 
nerves.  If  they  do  not  get  through,  them- 
selves, they  must  project  something  through; 
it  cannot  be  a  simple  tapping,  gentle  tapping, 
at  the  nose's  door.  That  might  produce  sound 
or  heat  or  even  light,  but  can  it  produce  smell? 
Let  us  agree  that  the  process  may  be  an 
osmotic  one  and  that  the  particles  glide 
through  softly,  gently;  and,  without  thinking 
that  it  has  any  special  bearing  upon  the  sub- 
ject, let  us  remember  that  a  healthy  dog's  nose 
is  usually  cold. 

Having  guessed  that  smell  may  be  caused 
by  an  impact  of  smell  ions  upon  the  nerve 
termini,  and  having  guessed  again  that  the 
process  may  be  an  osmotic  one,  we  may  be 
troubled  anew  with  the  question  as  to  that 
liquid  that  we  think  covers  the  termini  of  the 
olfactory  nerves.  Of  course,  like  other  juices 
of  the  body,  that  fluid  is  in  a  state  of  col- 
loidal dispersion,  but  how  much  do  we  know 
after  we  have  said  it  than  we  did  before? 

The  organic  chemists  have  outstepped  the 
physiologists;  they  have  discovered  molecular 
cousinships  among  certain  odoriferous  sub- 
stances, and  in  this  connection  there  is  con- 
siderable technical  literature  available  to  the 
[14] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

perfumery  industry.  Here  we  learn  how  the 
olfactory  drive  of  various  substances  may  be 
increased  or  modified  by  changes  in  their  chemi- 
cal structure.  But  with  all  good-will  to  the 
soap-makers,  the  perfumers,  and  the  barbers, 
we  are  engaged  in  what  the  commercial  traveler 
calls  a  different  line;  what  we  want  is  the 
philosophy  of  the  process  of  smelling. 

In  another  respect  research  has  been  in 
progress  for  some  time  and  there  seems  to 
be  light  in  the  offing.  The  entomologists  are 
at  work  and  they  recognize  this  function  in 
their  study  of  insects.  In  a  publication  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution  of  April,  1917, 
entitled,  Recognition  Among  Insects,  Dr.  N.  E. 
Mclndoo  presents  a  remarkable  series  of  find- 
ings by  himself  and  others,  especially  in  regard 
to  bees.  It  is  shown  that  the  progeny  of  each 
queen  have  a  family  odor,  that  queens  them- 
selves have  a  distinct  queen  odor  as  well  as  an 
individual  one,  but  that,  more  important  and 
superimposed  upon  these,  as  it  were,  is  the 
hive  odor.  That  is  the  great  passport,  and 
any  bee  with  a  foreign  smell  that  attempts  to 
enter  a  hive  is  fallen  upon  by  the  watchers  and 
slain.  If  workers  remain  in  the  open  air  for 
three  days,  they  lose  their  hive  odor  and  their 
sister  guards  are  likely  to  kill  them  if  they 
return.  The  insect  trusts  its  nose,  if  we  may  so 
[15] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

call  its  olfactory  apparatus,  above  everything 
else.  The  hive  odor  is  composite;  it  includes 
that  of  the  queen — and  queens  are  especially 
aromatic — and  the  family  and  wax  and  hive 
material  smells,  so  that  it  becomes,  so  to 
speak,  a  balanced  aroma,  in  which  any  change 
is  easily  recognized. 

Although  the  queen  does  not  rule,  her  pres- 
ence means  everything  to  the  bees  in  perpetu- 
ating the  colony.  Therefore,  if  she  wanders 
away  her  absence  is  soon  noted  by  the 
change  in  the  smell,  and  the  whole  hive  shortly 
afterward  reaches  a  state  of  turmoil.  It  is 
like  an  organization  of  business  men  who  sud- 
denly discover  through  other  senses  that  some 
important  factor  of  their  establishment  is 
missing  and  without  this  factor  they  are  bound 
to  fail.  The  two  situations  are  very  much 
alike.  As  soon  as  the  queen  returns  to  the 
hive  her  presence  is  felt  by  the  change  in  the 
odor,  and  then  the  bees  go  to  work  again, 
apparently  assured  that  all  is  well  in  their 
world  once  more,  because  the  smell  is  right. 

When  a  foreign  queen  is  introduced  into  a 
hive,  the  shrewd  bee-man  fills  it  with  smoke, 
which  confuses  the  workers  and  throws  them 
into  such  a  state  of  excitement  that  they  fill 
themselves  with  honey.  More  smoke  is  then 
blown  into  the  hive,  and  by  the  time  the 
[16] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

workers  have  quieted  down  the  introduced 
queen  has  taken  on  enough  of  the  hive  odor  to 
protect  her.  Without  this  she  would  be  killed. 
The  smell  of  a  foreigner  excites  suspicion 
among  bees — and  they  are  impulsive  creatures. 

Ants  are  said  to  order  their  lives  by  smell 
in  a  manner  similar  to  bees.  Butterflies, 
which  have  the  happy  faculty  of  postponing 
their  love-making  until  the  end  of  their  days, 
seem  to  glory  in  odors.  Some  species,  indeed, 
appear  to  have  no  less  than  three  kinds. 
There  is  the  protective  odor  which  makes  life 
unpleasant  for  an  enemy,  and  an  individual 
odor  which,  possibly,  encourages  their  amour 
propre.  Then  there  is  the  alluring  scent 
which  in  some  species  is  given  off  by  the  male 
and  in  others  by  the  female.  These  are  so 
persuasive  that  on  a  fair,  sunny  day  a  single 
whiff  is  supposed  to  be  convincing.  Their 
potency  is  proved  by  the  myriads  of  golden  and 
red  and  yellow  and  orange  and  purple  wings 
which  nutter  away,  as  with  one  accord,  to  the 
flowery  field  where  the  butterfly  parson  lives. 

If,  then,  we  find  these  phenomena  among 
insects,  why  should  we  not  study  the  human 
nose  reactions?  We  are  diligently  making 
quest  as  to  the  nature  of  the  atom  and  good 
men  are  working  over  it;  but  concerning  the 
phenomenon  of  smell  among  human  beings  we 
[17] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

are  still  medieval.  Nobody  knows  and  many 
talk  big.  There  is  little  progress  to  be  made 
by  vapid  guessing  outside  of  laboratories. 
But  those  of  us  who  are  inactive  in  research 
may  be  of  use  if  we  are  only  frank  and  talk 
about  it  enough  to  get  it  out  of  the  taboo  under 
which  it  has  rested  for  over  a  thousand  years. 
Then,  if  we  maintain  a  simple  curiosity,  such 
as  animates  children  and  great  men,  there  will 
come  from  the  laboratories  one  fact  after 
another  which  has  not  been  known  before. 
Then,  some  day,  some  one  with  the  Vision 
will  arise  and  arrange  the  facts  in  their  right 
order,  and  so,  suddenly,  there  will  stand 
revealed  the  Truth!  Thus,  with  the  sense  of 
smell  added  to  the  intelligent  use  of  mankind, 
life  will  be  greater  and  larger,  and  the  bounda- 
ries of  human  knowledge  will  be  moved  back  a 
span  and  human  understanding  will  take  one 
more  great  step  in  advance  toward  the  Infinite. 
To  return  to  the  dog,  he  seems  to  know 
and  to  recognize  certain  emotions  through  his 
nose.  He  seems  to  recognize  fear,  and  to  have 
all  sorts  of  fun  with  it.  He  appears  also  to 
recognize  good-will — although  not  always,  as 
many  of  us  can  testify — and  he  seems  to  know 
anger.  Now,  we  know  that  nerve  reactions 
have  a  chemical  accompaniment.  Metabolism 
is  often  inhibited  by  them,  the  whole  digestive 
[18] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

process  is  frequently  upset,  and  there  is  a  fair 
possibility  that  the  sweat-glands  are  so  modi- 
fied by  emotions  that  their  processes  are  in- 
dicative of  emotional  reactions.  The  trained 
nose  might  recognize  this.  If  we  should  only 
advance  along  this  line  until  we  could  recognize 
anger  and  fear,  and  possibly  even  deceit,  con- 
sider in  what  measure  life  would  be  improved ! 
It  seems  a  far  cry  to  imagine,  in  a  court  of  law, 
the  witness  testifying,  with  two  or  three  good 
smellers  sitting  close  by  to  note  his  sweat  re- 
actions; but  it  would  be  no  more  absurd  than 
some  of  our  courts  to-day,  with  their  far  more 
misleading  entanglements  of  legal  procedure. 
We  talk  of  the  value  of  publicity  in  regard  to 
corporate  affairs,  but  we  have  only  for  a 
minute  to  consider  what  an  aid  to  morals 
trained  noses  would  be  by  way  of  effecting 
publicity  in  the  family.  The  mere  suggestion 
unlocks  the  door  to  the  trouble-parlor;  but 
then,  no  one  would  try  to  lock  it  if  he  and  his 
household  were  proficient  in  the  art  of  smelling. 
The  defaulting  cashier  would  reek  of  worry 
clear  up  to  the  ceiling  as  soon  as  he  made  his 
first  false  entry,  and  if  the  specific  odors  of 
anger  and  deceit  were  discovered  so  that  they 
might  be  known  immediately,  we — but  this 
is  not  a  theological  discourse  and  its  purpose 
is  not  to  describe  Paradise. 
[191 


THE  HUMAN  SATURATION  POINT 

IF  a  solute  or  soluble  substance  is  dissolved 
in  water  or  other  solvent  a  point  is  often 
reached  that  indicates  that  the  limit  of 
solubility  has  been  attained  and  that  is  called 
the  saturation  point.  The  solvent  cannot 
take  up  any  more.  Now,  in  our  relations 
with  one  another,  we  often  find  that  we  behave 
as  though  we  were  solvents  and  we  show  by 
our  saturation  points  the  measure  of  good 
things  that  we  can  take  up  or  dissolve.  If  I 
do  a  favor  to  you  and  you  reward  me 
equitably  for  it  and  we  maintain  an  equilibrium 
of  service  and  reward,  we  may  after  the  manner 
of  chemists  express  the  situation  in  this  way: 

My  service  to  you  ±;  your  rewards  to  me. 

You  may  reward  me  in  greater  measure  than 
my  favor  deserves  and  I  may  be  able  to  take 
up  or  dissolve  a  great  deal  of  it  from  you  and 
be  the  better  for  it.  But  the  chances  are  that 
I  have  a  saturation  point,  and  if  your  reward 
goes  beyond  it  I  shall  show  a  precipitate,  and 
then  I  cease  to  be  the  clear  solution  that  I  was. 
Then  I  am  super-saturated ,  and  injured.  Per- 
[20] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

haps  I  can  best  explain  this  by  the  story  of  a 
man  named  John  whom  I  had  in  my  employ 
once  in  a  chemical  factory. 

John  was  a  remarkably  efficient  workman. 
He  had  a  good  head,  was  diligent,  faithful,  and 
interested  in  his  work.  In  fact,  John  was  a 
jewel.  I  ;;aid  him  two  dollars  a  day.  This 
was  back  in  the  early  'eighties  and  two  dollars 
was  better  pay  than  it  is  now. 

John's  job  was  caring  for  a  kettle  and  he  did 
it  exceedingly  well.  The  melt  in  his  kettle 
nearly  always  came  out  right  because  he 
watched  the  thermometers  carefully  and  knew 
how  to  manage  the  fire  underneath.  Then, 
too,  if  anything  went  wrong  he  was  alert 
to  observe  it  and  he  would  come  and  tell  me  at 
the  first  sign  of  disorder,  instead  of  waiting, 
as  some  of  the  other  men  had  done,  until 
several  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  material  was 
spoiled.  Then  I  gave  him  two  kettles  and  a 
helper  and  raised  his  pay  to  $2.25  a  day.  The 
results  justified  my  happiest  expectations. 
Then  I  gave  him  four  kettles  to  look  after  and 
$2.50  a  day.  Results  were  still  better.  In 
time  he  became  gang  foreman,  in  charge  of  all 
the  kettles,  and  his  wages  were  three  dollars  a 
day.  He  used  his  judgment  to  good  advantage. 
My  troubles  with  the  kettles  nearly  ceased. 
There  was  a  little  more  work  in  that  depart- 
3  [21] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

ment  which  required  some  attention  to  tem- 
peratures. It  was  not  arduous  and  demanded 
but  a  little  time  occasionally.  We  discussed 
the  problem ;  he  was  certain  that  he  could  look 
after  it  easily  and  made  one  or  two  valuable 
suggestions.  So  I  made  him  department  fore- 
man at  S3. 25  a  day.  That  last  quarter  of  a 
dollar  spoiled  him!  Straightway  his  conceit 
knew  no  bounds.  He  bullied  the  men  under 
him,  assumed  a  false  dignity,  would  listen  to 
no  advice,  knew  everything  better,  and  the 
finish  was  painful. 

Across  the  street,  in  another  department, 
Charlie  went  to  pieces  on  slighter  promotion. 

John  reached  his  saturation  point  at  $3.25 
a  day;  Charlie  at  $2.50. 

The  illustration  may  not  be  a  happy  one; 
perhaps  in  managing  my  men  I  missed  some 
principles  of  psychology  which,  duly  applied, 
would  have  avoided  the  trouble.  But  I  think 
the  example  holds;  they  reached  each  his 
saturation  point;  not  in  money,  necessarily, 
but  in  responsibility  and  reward. 

The  saturation  point,  as  we  are  calling  it, 
is  peculiar  in  this  respect.  We  rarely  observe 
it  in  ourselves,  although  it  becomes  immedi- 
ately patent  to  every  one  else.  Now  the 
world  is  full  of  super-saturated  people.  The 
sudden  accession  of  wealth  is  the  occasion  of 
[22] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

its  frequent  display.  Access  of  responsibility 
often  causes  it.  A  prosperous  or  socially 
favorable  marriage  super-saturates  many 
women,  and  it  does  the  same  to  many  men. 
When  any  one  gets  what  is  known  in  slang  as 
"the  big  head"  he  has  passed  his  saturation 
point.  It  is  more  frequently  reached  by 
master  or  mistress  than  by  man  or  maid, 
but  none  of  us  is  free  from  the  possibility  of 
it.  The  impertinence  of  others  is  often  not 
their  own  fault,  but  rather  our  own  uncon- 
scious bumptiousness — ^the  normal  human 
reaction  of  super-saturation. 

The  man  who  struts  about  declaring  that 
ingratitude  is  the  one  thing  he  will  not  brook 
is  almost  certain  to  have  passed  his  point,  and 
his  call  for  gratitude  is  more  often  than  not 
the  cry  of  his  own  vanity  for  praise  that 
he  is  seeking.  It  would  seem  that  excess  of 
reward  sets  something  askew  in  the  human 
mechanism.  The  megalomania  that  follows 
it  manifests  itself  occasionally  only  on  the 
social  side,  leaving  the  mind  as  clear  to  admin- 
ister affairs  as  ever  it  was;  but  more  often 
super-saturation  affects  more  than  our  man- 
ners; it  affects  our  character.  At  times  it  is 
ruinous.  The  very  best  of  us  go  to  pieces 
under  it.  Successful  institutions  are  often  the 
graves  of  the  reputations  of  the  men  who  made 
[23] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

them;  of  their  real  creators  who  conceived 
the  ideas,  organized,  worked,  and  toiled  with 
inspiration  and  with  unceasing  effort  to  bring 
about  success,  and  then,  somewhere  in  the 
process,  all  unexpectedly  reached  their  satura- 
tion point.  Then  they  proceed  to  follow  in 
the  way  of  my  John. 

What  happens  to  such  a  man  or  woman? 
Is  it  a  pathological  process?  Is  some  poison 
secreted  that  produces  this  megalomania? 
The  creature  that  has  passed  his  saturation 
point  is  not  the  same  as  he  was  before.  He 
loses  patience,  he  thinks  only  of  himself  in 
relation  to  his  work,  his  attention  to  the 
opinions  and  advice  of  others  is  inhibited,  he 
ceases  to  acknowledge  that  he  makes  mistakes; 
and  the  very  leader  that  you  have  been  depend- 
ing upon,  supporting,  defending,  and  encourag- 
ing, turns  out  to  be  inefficient  and  inadequate. 
It  is  a  veritable  tragedy;  and  it  is  constantly 
occurring. 

We  find  it  in  politics  often.  The  once  in- 
spiring leader  is  likely  to  change  his  whole 
nature  as  soon  as  his  saturation  point  of  praise 
is  reached,  and  to  degenerate  into  a  selfish 
boss  or  a  demagogue.  The  man  of  ideals 
closes  his  mind  and  becomes  a  common  scold. 
It  almost  seems  as  if  it  were  not  good  to  be 
fully  rewarded,  because  the  least  excess — and 
[241 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

who  can  measure  rewards  with  justice? — will 
weigh  in  the  balance  against  us  and  then  up 
we  go,  off  the  earth,  into  the  air;  and  so  into 
the  windmill  region. 

It  does,  indeed,  seem  odd  to  think  of  an 
employee  cautioning  his  employer  against  pay- 
ing him  too  great  a  reward  lest  he  reach  his 
saturation  point;  nevertheless,  we  should  all 
beware  of  great  rewards,  for  danger  lurks  in 
them.  Labor  leaders  are  often  the  unconscious 
victims  of  severe  attacks  of  the  malady,  and  it 
occasionally  occurs  that  all  parties  to  an 
arbitration  of  a  labor  dispute  are  afflicted  at 
the  same  time.  Then  the  poor  go  hungry  and 
dividends  cease. 

The  professions  are  full  of  examples  of  this, 
and  so  is  the  business  world.  As  soon  as  a 
man's  reward  is  too  great  or  as  soon  as  his  job 
is  too  big  for  him,  whether  because  of  increas- 
ing complexities  of  his  task  or  because  he 
decreases  in  efficiency,  the  saturation  point  is 
at  hand.  He  may  go  to  pieces  in  a  nervous 
breakdown,  but  usually  the  first  symptom  is 
his  denial  that  his  administration  is  open  to 
criticism,  and,  out  of  sheer  weakness,  he  closes 
his  mind.  Then  come  impatience  and  irasci- 
bility; and  the  first  person  singular  enters 
into  his  soul. 

The  ability  to  remain  both  sober  and  gracious 
[25] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

under  high  reward  or  great  responsibility  is  a 
quality  that  we  greatly  admire  in  others.  To 
retain  a  simple  and  open  mind  after  doing 
something  that  is  acknowledged  to  be  of  merit 
is  one  of  the  rarest  accomplishments  of  sanity. 
It  makes  for  pleasantness  in  abundant  measure. 
Indeed,  it  does  more  than  this;  it  makes  living 
possible,  paves  the  way  to  success,  begets  good- 
will, conquers  hatred  and  uncharitableness — 
in  short,  it  is  the  substance  of  comity,  the 
evidence  of  grace,  and  the  proof  of  a  large  mind 
that  is  sane. 

Some  of  us  begin  to  develop  when  rewards 
come.  We  peg  away  at  our  jobs,  none  too  gra- 
ciously, perhaps,  until  others  begin  to  admire. 
Under  this  stimulus  some  of  us  ripen  into  excep- 
tionally good  citizens — fine,  and  of  great  bene- 
fit to  the  world  we  live  in.  But  even  those  of 
us  who  have  achieved  great  merit  are  not  in- 
vulnerable. The  hallucination  that  we  are 
something  that  we  are  not,  or  are  entitled  to 
more  than  our  deserts,  or  that  our  judgment 
is  the  only  righteous  and  sound  judgment,  is 
the  sign  that  the  point  of  saturation  has  been 
passed. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  kind  of  mild  insanity,  and  we 
shall  do  well  to  guard  against  it.  It  is  very 
wide-spread  and  many  of  us  are  in  the  throes 
of  it  now. 

[26] 


THE    ROAD    TO    ARCADY 

WE  have  a  curious  belief  that  the  high- 
est human  achievement  is  of  an  ad- 
ministrative nature.  The  view  is  by 
no  means  unanimously  held,  but  it  is  very  wide- 
spread. The  administrative  post  is  nearly 
always  that  for  which  the  highest  remunera- 
tion is  paid.  There  is  a  reason  for  this,  but 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  the  adulation 
and  emulation  which  follow  it,  as  we  shall  very 
soon  see.  To  boss  the  job  seems  to  be  the 
fulfilment  of  nearly  everybody's  ambition,  and 
yet,  really  very  few  of  us  are  equipped  to  do  it. 
Administration  is  in  small  part  an  art  and  in 
large  part  a  talent;  it  may  be  developed  in 
some  of  us,  but  the  great  majority  is  and  always 
will  be  incompetent  and  futile  as  administra- 
tors. Now  to  boss  a  job  when  one  is  not 
fitted  for  it  is  no  less  than  torture,  and  it  surely 
must  be  vanity  alone  that  inspires  so  many  to 
misuse  their  gifts  in  the  effort.  Of  course  it 
is,  in  a  way,  a  distinction  to  allot  work  to 
others,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  function 
js  often  misconstrued  as  the  peak  of  human 
[27] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

achievement.  It  seems,  indeed,  not  only  quite 
as  honorable,  but  even  more  so,  to  do  a  good 
deed  than  to  tell  somebody  else  to  do  it,  and  the 
same  holds  true  of  a  good  piece  of  work. 

It  is  easy  to  find  fault  with  schools,  and 
just  now  it  is  the  fashion  to  do  so.  Let's  join 
the  procession.  The  trouble  with  our  schools 
— (that's  the  way  they  all  begin) — trouble 
with  our  schools  as  far  as  boys  are  concerned 
is  that  we  have  held  before  them  the  idea  that 
if  they  study  hard  and  do  as  they  are  told,  they 
can  direct  other  men  in  their  work  when  they 
grow  up  instead  of  having  to  work  themselves. 
We  say  that  masters  of  men  are  needed,  which 
is  economically  true,  but  then  we  urge  them  all 
to  fit  themselves  for  such  a  career.  And  if  a 
boy  lacks  the  talent  it  is  his  misfortune  rather 
than  his  good  luck  if  he  enters  upon  it.  Gifted 
teachers  know  this  and  develop  boys  for  the 
work  they  can  perform — for  research,  for 
observation,  for  meditation  and  comment,  for 
art,  or  for  trade,  according  to  the  endowments 
of  each.  The  standardized  teacher  does  not 
and  cannot  accomplish  this.  The  size  of 
the  living  that  a  man  makes  for  himself  is 
not  important;  it  is  the  quality  of  it  that 
counts. 

The  business  of  the  administrator  is  to 
arrange  and  allot  work  so  that  it  shall  come 
[28] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

out  right.  His  work  is  necessary  and  intensely 
arduous,  but  society  suffers  severely  because 
of  the  fiction  that  men  of  administrative  ability 
are  superior  in  most  other  respects,  and  they 
have  been  courted  and  brought  together  in 
high  places,  to  the  confusion  of  joy  in  high 
places.  The  ability  of  such  men  is  different, 
not  greater. 

They  are  necessary  and  the  need  of  them 
is  absolute.  Unfortunately,  there  are  not 
enough  of  them,  as  we  may  learn  from  the 
evidences  of  bad  management  on  every  hand. 
The  purpose  of  this  essay,  then,  is  by  no  means 
to  decry  the  great  usefulness  of  men  of  admin- 
istrative ability,  nor  to  belittle  their  merits 
in  their  work.  My  postulate  is  that  their 
work  inhibits  them  from  the  leisure  which 
may  be  enjoyed  by  those  who  work  eight 
hours  a  day  at  a  trade  or  occupation  that  does 
not  call  for  constant  planning  for  others.  If 
this  be  true,  then  the  responsibility  for  the  de- 
velopment of  culture  and  the  graces  of  life 
rests  upon  wage-earners  who  make  a  decent 
living  rather  than  upon  their  employers  who 
live  in  affluence.  If  by  a  leisure  class  is  meant 
idlers,  we  may  as  well  leave  them  out  of  con- 
sideration, for  I  think  it  will  be  generally 
admitted  that  those  who,  without  the  habit  of 
work,  live  only  for  their  own  pleasure,  are  as 
[29] 


useless  in  the  development  of  culture  and  the 
graces  of  life  as  they  are  at  anything  else. 

The  stupid,  the  dull,  the  heavy-witted  and 
inefficient  of  course  gravitate  to  workers  by 
the  day,  but  the  day  laborers  have  no  monop- 
oly of  them.  They  are  everywhere,  although 
there  are  far  more  of  them  at  the  bottom  than 
at  the  top.  But  the  extraordinary  rewards 
paid  for  administrative  talent  and  the  fiction 
that  all  men  are  equal  from  any  angle  of  vision, 
have  blinded  us  to  merits  and  talents  that  are 
almost  as  wide-spread  as  dullness  is. 

Nobody  is  free,  everybody  is  responsible  to 
others,  but  the  boss  is  the  man  who  is  most 
restricted  in  his  life.  Let  us  imagine,  for 
instance,  the  miners  who  work  in  an  isolated 
mine  to  be  men  of  culture  with  the  habits  of 
life  that  distinguish  such  men.  There  should 
not  seem  anything  absurd  in  this  situation 
that  we  are  trying  to  imagine — a  number  of 
cultured  men  working  together  for  eight  hours 
a  day  at  the  pay  of  good  miners.  Many  men 
of  great  attainments  live  on  less  and  work 
longer.  Their  leisure  would  be  spent  according 
to  the  custom  of  men  of  culture;  instead  of 
weekly  debauches  of  drunkenness  and  gam- 
bling there  would  probably  be  a  geological 
society  organized  among  them,  and  possibly 
a  zoological  society,  as  well  as  a  mathe^ 
[30] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

matical  group;  there  would  be  a  little  chemical 
laboratory  available  for  research  in  the  assay 
office,  and  literary  contributions  in  the  way  of 
verses,  masques,  and  the  like  would  be  made 
frequently.  One  of  the  members  of  the  geo- 
logical society  might  make  notes  concerning 
the  formation  and  deposits  of  ore  that  would 
be  worth  more  to  him  in  the  way  of  a  bonus 
than  a  year's  salary  of  the  superintendent. 
Or  a  member  of  the  zoological  society  might 
produce  some  original  work  in  regard  to  the 
lizards  of  that  region  which  would  give  him 
more  pleasure  than  the  geological  comrade 
obtains  from  his  bonus.  The  poor  superin- 
tendent in  the  mean  time  is  worrying  over  his 
inability  to  get  out  ore  fast  enough,  and  the 
scarcity  of  cars,  and  whether  the  coal  will  last 
out,  and  the  complaints  that  will  come  in  be- 
cause it  has  been  necessary  to  ship  lean  ores 
for  a  while.  He  is  a  poor  slave  at  best!  The 
miner  can  live  the  life  of  a  gentleman  and 
engage  in  his  favorite  pursuits.  The  superin- 
tendent is  a  drudge;  his  very  ability  to  admin- 
ister has  robbed  him  of  the  opportunity  to 
enjoy  life. 

To  the  question,  "Where  may  one  find  such 

a  group  of  men  in  a  mine?"  the  answer  is  clear. 

It  is  nowhere,  so  far  as  I  know.     But  to  the 

question,  "When  may  such  a  group  be  found?" 

[31] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  answer  is  also  patent.  It  is  as  soon  as  we 
learn  that  economics  is  only  a  small  fraction 
of  life,  and  when  we  are  made  alive  to  the  full- 
ness that  life  offers  to  every  one  who  is  of 
normal  endowment.  Then  the  day  will  be 
at  hand  and  the  men  will  be  there. 

In  colleges  and  universities  we  find  professors 
who  are  masters  of  research  promoted  to  be 
deans  when  they  would  far  rather  be  relieved 
of  the  arduous,  dull,  secretarial  duties  of  the 
office  and  long  to  be  in  their  studies  or  their 
laboratories.  But  they  accept  these  positions 
which  carry  greater  pay  and  they  need  the 
money.  It  suggests  the  notion  that  it  is  more 
honorable  and  more  worthy  to  adjudicate  a 
quarrel  between  two  students  who  do  not 
study,  and  so  have  nothing  to  do,  than  to  be 
adding  to  the  world's  store  of  knowledge! 

The  man  in  authority,  the  administrative 
man,  is  under  serious  handicaps.  His  work  is 
never  finished  and  it  is  rare  indeed  that  he  can 
afford  to  devote  his  recreation  to  anything 
better  than  sport.  Now  sport  has  its  great 
uses,  but  the  stringent  rules  against  profes- 
sionalism in  amateur  athletics  tell  plainly  how 
important  it  is  that  sport  be  regarded  as  of 
secondary  rather  than  of  primary  importance. 

"Sport  is  all  right,"  said  one  of  the  leading 
physicists  of  America.  "Of  course,  any  coun- 
[32] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

ter-jumper  can  buy  tackle  and  flies  and  whip 
a  stream,  or  take  a  gun  and  a  dog  and  go  to  the 
woods.  It  is  good  sport  to  do  so,  fine  sport, 
and  worth  while.  But  we  fellows  in  science 
bring  down  game  that  no  one  else  has  ever 
bagged,  and  I  find,  somehow,  more  satisfaction 
in  it." 

The  reason  why  hunting,  fishing,  golf,  and 
the  like  have  such  a  great  reputation  for  giving 
delight  is  only  partly  due  to  the  inherent 
charm  of  the  occupations.  Like  patience  at 
cards,  they  are  recreations  for  all  types  of 
mind  from  genius  to  orthodoxy.  They  appeal 
to  poet  and  peasant,  to  the  king  and  the  way- 
side tinker,  to  the  banker  and  the  beggar. 
They  have  the  merit  of  simplicity;  they  are 
wholesome  and  without  vice — save  poaching, 
which  is  in  itself  a  kind  of  sport.  They  have 
also  the  quality  of  fashion,  therefore  we  find  a 
vast  number  of  artificial  sportsmen  who  have 
schooled  themselves  to  look  up  to  administra- 
tive men,  to  copy  them,  to  follow  them  in 
their  pleasures  in  the  hope  that  some  day 
they  may  show  resemblances  in  other  respects. 
Now  I  offer  the  suggestion  that  administrative 
men  are  so  dulled  by  their  occupation,  which 
keeps  them  away  from  creative  work  and  yet 
demands  great  intensity  of  attention,  that  their 
exhausted  intelligence  does  not  reach  beyond 
[33] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

the  gun  and  the  rod  and  reel.  Hunting  and 
fishing  are  usually  their  best;  the  rest  of  us 
have  a  chance  at  greater  game. 

That  the  administrative  man  is  likely  to  be 
socially  dull  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  certain 
clubs  seek  to  keep  the  number  of  business  men 
among  their  members  down  to  a  minimum, 
under  the  mistaken  impression  that  business 
men  are  not  interesting.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  business  men  who  are  deficient  in  admin- 
istrative capacity  would  resent  the  imputation, 
because  we  have  attributed  the  greatest  dis- 
tinction and  work  to  the  commander.  Such 
men  would  be  deplorable  failures  if  they  were 
not  inventors  and  men  of  vision,  keeping  them- 
selves afloat  by  these  useful  though  less 
admired  talents. 

The  able  administrator  may  be  a  man  of 
charm,  but  there  is  little  in  his  work  to  make 
him  interesting.  And  he  is  a  dull  fellow  indeed 
unless  he  can  find  time  to  commune  with  his 
soul  and  to  chase  the  stars.  The  man  who 
works  under  him  has  a  great  social  advantage. 
He  knows  work  at  first  hand  rather  than  at 
second  hand,  and  his  leisure  is  his  own. 

Some  day  we  may  get  over  our  snobbery 

and  look  for  our  needs  where  we  may  find  them. 

Then  if  we  want  advice  how  to  get  some  work 

done  that  we  cannot  do  ourselves,  we  shall  go 

[34] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

to  the  overseer,  the  administrator,  the  superin- 
tendent, or  the  president  of  the  corporation. 
If  we  want  poetry  or  song,  or  to  enter  into  the 
joy  of  living,  we  shall  go  to  the  hired  man. 

There  is  nothing  absurd  about  this;  the 
absurdity  is  in  our  present  methods.  Once  in  a 
blue  moon  we  find  a  man  engaged  in  adminis- 
trative work  who  has  other  interests  that  are 
worth  while,  but  usually  the  avocations  of 
such  men  are  of  a  kind  that  require  very  little 
intelligence.  And  it  is  right  that  it  should  be 
so ;  administrative  work  is  exhausting  and  good 
administrators  are,  as  we  have  said,  very  rare. 
There  are  more  failures  for  lack  of  this  talent 
than  for  any  other  reason.  The  faculty  to  ad- 
minister is  of  a  mathematical  nature;  possi- 
bilities must  be  computed  and  lines  of  develop- 
ment plotted  without  error.  The  factors 
change  so  constantly  that  no  rule  may  be 
applied  that  will  meet  each  situation  as  it  arises. 
It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  men  engaged  in  this 
pursuit  demand  high  pay,  or  that  if  they  were 
to  address  themselves  to  other  than  childlike 
pleasures  they  would  become  unfit  for  serious 
work.  So  we  should  encourage  them  in  their 
joys. 

Now  it  hardly  needs  mention  that  among 
a  group  of  successful  men  engaged  in  the 
administration  of  affairs  one  is  sure  to  find 
[35] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

alert  minds,  well  ordered,  and  men  who  are 
companionable  withal.  They  have  the  sagac- 
ity to  meet  conditions  as  they  find  them. 
They  have  vigor  and  force.  They  have 
trained  themselves  to  do  one  thing  at  least, 
and  any  human  being  who  can  do  anything 
well  is  interesting.  This  is  self-evident  and 
may  seem  to  constitute  an  argument  against 
everything  I  am  saying.  Indeed,  if  this  were 
a  Fourth  of  July  oration  and  its  purpose  to  let 
the  American  eagle  scream,  it  might  do  as  a  , 
peroration.  But  it  is  our  business  to  wander  a 
little  farther.  Let  us  admit  that  the  great 
galaxy  of  successful  American  business  men 
constitute  an  aristocracy  of  administrators. 
After  it  is  granted  it  gives  us  no  occasion  to 
rest  content  and  in  satisfaction.  And  it  will 
not  satisfy  them.  No  one  knows  better  than 
the  men  themselves  how  short  they  fall  in 
their  efforts  outside  of  their  business.  They 
are  better  than  others  in  administration;  but 
there  the  betterment  stops.  Suppose  men  of 
affairs  were  to  exercise  the  same  quality  of 
talent  in  their  daily  business  that  they  apply 
in  making  purchases  for  their  private  art  col- 
lections. Even  the  picture  and  curio  dealers 
might  well  tremble  for  the  panic  that  would 
ensue! 

Now  the  man  in  the  factory  or  in  the  office 
[36] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

has  a  far  better  opportunity  to  live  an  inter- 
esting life.  We  assume,  as  we  have  said,  that 
he  earns  a  living  wage  and  that  his  day's  work 
is  not  over  eight  hours.  Then  he  has  his  eve- 
nings and  his  Sundays  free  and  often  his  Satur- 
day afternoons.  The  public  libraries  give  him 
the  same  opportunities  that  his  employer 
enjoys,  and  the  nature  of  his  work  makes  it 
possible  for  him  to  follow  his  favorite  pursuit, 
whereas  his  employer,  in  his  leisure,  is  not  good 
for  anything  better  than  a  game  of  golf,  a 
game  of  cards,  or  a  very  silly  play.  To  enjoy 
dramas  of  the  type  that  we  frequently  see 
presented  requires  either  an  undeveloped  or  a 
very  weary  mind. 

Suppose  we  were  to  acknowledge  that 
administrative  ability  is  a  rare  gift,  like  red 
hair,  only  rarer,  and  admit  that  in  the  majority 
of  us  it  is  lacking.  We  could  then  prepare  our- 
selves for  a  life  that  is  worth  while.  Let  us 
call  eight  hours  a  day's  work  and  take  up  a 
trade  or  occupation  in  which  we  can  earn  a 
good  living  wage.  Then  let  us  bear  in  mind 
that  we  shall  be  better  off  if  we  are  civilized, 
and  proceed  to  civilize  ourselves. 

The  great  trouble  is  that  the  civilization 

of  to-day  is  still  of  a  very  low  degree.    We 

talk  big  and  think  small.    Only  a  few  of  us 

even  know  how  to  read.    We  know  our  alpha- 

4  [371 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

bet  and  we  can  spell  out  words  and  write 
them,  but  to  read  a  book  and  understand  what 
the  author  means  is  difficult.  There  are,  for 
instance,  books  on  bookkeeping  that  cover  as 
much  of  the  subject  as  may  be  taught,  but 
there  are  very  few  who,  by  reading  such  a 
work,  are  enabled  to  open  a  set  of  books  and 
post  and  balance  them.  There  are  treatises 
on  all  kinds  of  subjects,  but  we  cannot  read 
them  so  that  we  understand  what  is  written;  ' 
we  have  not  learned  how.  The  accountant 
can  read  a  treatise  on  bookkeeping  and  de- 
light in  it;  the  master  builder  reads  a  book 
on  masonry,  and  while  he  already  knows  most 
of  what  is  printed  in  it,  he  is  elated  to  discover 
a  few  tricks  that  are  new  to  him.  But  we  need 
a  long  initiation  in  almost  any  subject  before 
our  reading  about  it  is  likely  to  be  of  value. 

Science  is  a  rare  sport,  and  the  competent 
man,  as  soon  as  he  has  developed  himself  in  it, 
finds  himself  in  good  society,  in  the  very  best 
society,  which  is  far  more  compensatory  than 
the  smart  set.  The  same  holds  true  of  philoso- 
phy and  of  all  the  arts.  Science,  philosophy, 
and  all  the  arts  are  the  portals  of  civilization. 

If  the  working-man  is  to  become  civilized 

he  must  go  beyond  economics;    he  also  must 

civilize  himself.     His  employer  cannot  do  it 

for  him,  because,  for  one  reason,  his  employer 

[38] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

does  not  know  enough,  and,  for  another,  the 
man  must  want  it  of  his  own  accord.  Eco- 
nomics will  not  secure  it  for  him. 

Envy  and  jealousy  do  certainly  play  the 
devil  with  us,  and,  since  they  are  both  human 
qualities,  it  is  idle  to  say  that  they  either 
should  be  or  may  be  eliminated  from  human 
nature.  But  we  have  overcome  many  foolish 
ideas;  we  have  given  up  our  belief  in  witch- 
craft; we  have  ceased  to  reverence  the  holy 
man  who  sits  unwashed  for  twenty  years  and 
lashes  himself  with  a  view  to  achieving  merit 
thereby;  and  some  day  we  may  cease  to  em- 
ulate foolish  people  in  gay  clothes  who  go 
about  committing  economic  excesses. 

A  certain  chemist  made  a  discovery  and 
patented  it.  He  shortly  found  the  need  of 
his  invention  to  be  so  great  that  the  returns  in 
royalties  threatened  to  swamp  him  with 
wealth.  "I  cannot  stand  such  a  thing!"  he 
declared;  "the  care  of  it  would  use  up  all  my 
time  and  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  with 
the  money."  So  he  turned  over  the  great 
income  from  his  patents  to  be  administered 
by  trustees  for  the  advancement  of  science. 
He  then  entered  into  the  employ  of  the  govern- 
ment and  he  is  now,  as  he  was  before,  a  very 
busy  man.  In  his  leisure  he  matures  other 
ideas.  There  are  others  like  him;  they 
{39] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

are  very  attractive  people  and  they  lead  happy 
lives.  The  world  does  not  know  of  them  and 
they  take  good  care  that  it  shall  not;  they 
know  how  short-lived  is  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
multitude  and  that  they  are  better  off  without 
it.  In  short,  they  are  civilized. 

Very  few  of  us  are  civilized,  but  the  laborer 
has  a  better  chance  to  become  so  than  his 
employer.  If  he  reaches  this  point  the  cheap, 
noisy  labor  agitator  of  to-day  will  cease  to 
attract  him,  for  his  mind  will  be  better  ordered. 
And  by  virtue  of  his  training  he  will  find  him- 
self in  a  position  to  secure  his  rights  with  far 
less  circumstance  than  now,  and  with  neither 
noise  nor  broken  bones.  The  labor  leaders  of 
real  civilization  will  be  quiet,  firm  men  of 
administrative  capacity  and  they  will  receive 
good  pay  for  their  difficult  work.  Such  men 
occasionally  appear  even  now,  very  often  only 
to  be  supplanted  by  a  rival  with  a  loud  voice 
as  his  single  talent. 

Two  qualifications  are  needed  to  bring  about 
civilization  in  any  man,  of  which  the  first  is  pos- 
sible and  the  second  is  open  to  question  until 
it  is  proved.  He  must,  primarily,  want  to  be- 
come civilized — really  want  to.  As  soon  as  he 
does,  his  way  is  open.  The  second  require- 
ment is  more  difficult;  he  must  be  capable  of 
civilisation. 

[40] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

If  the  men  who  have  the  opportunity  should 
take  on  civilization — and  these  are  they  whose 
tasks  are  completed  for  the  day  when  the  bell 
rings  or  the  whistle  blows — there  is  a  golden 
age  before  us. 

Things  are  not  right  as  they  are,  and  if  we 
would  get  a  vision  of  a  world  that  is  better 
worth  living  in  than  this  present  era  of  wealth 
and  vanity,  we  must  look  for  something  more 
than  the  administration  of  affairs  and  the 
economic  use  of  men.  We  must  seek  inspira- 
tion and  suggestion  to  bo  men  of  vision,  to 
discover  the  art  of  work  and  to  find  the  joy 
of  it.  You,  I,  every  one  of  us,  must  develop 
an  ambition  to  take  some  part  in  the  world 
besides  ruling  others.  Why  should  we  want 
to  make  of  ourselves  the  caricatures  of  kings? 
The  hopelessly  dull,  the  inefficient,  the  feeble- 
minded are  hardly  in  the  majority  now,  and 
let  us  hope  that  some  day  they  may  be  a 
decreasing  minority.  The  rest  are  the  people, 
composed  of  good,  human  material  with  po- 
tentialities undreamed  of  in  the  life  of  to-day. 


I  AM  taking  the  word  with  the  worst  repu- 
tation I  know  to  describe  what  I  mean, 
because  it  seems  better  to  err  on  the  side 
of  frankness  than  to  hide  radical  ideas  under 
the  cloak  of  conservatism.  Jacques  Loeb  uses 
a  better  expression  in  his  Mechanistic  Concep- 
tion of  Life,  but  the  term  is  new,  despite  its  fre- 
quent use.  Materialism  is  good  enough,  except 
for  its  reputation;  and  the  ideas  which  are  to 
follow  will  not  be  so  precise  as  to  call  for  great 
nicety  in  name. 

We  call  everything  bad,  everything  low, 
everything  undesirable,  "material,"  whereas 
we  exalt  those  things  we  hold  in  high  esteem 
as  "spiritual."  It  is  a  smug  and  lazy  method, 
and  because  the  two  expressions  have  never 
passed  through  the  alembic  of  slang  they  find 
themselves  in  gross  misuse  in  high  places.  As 
an  evidence  of  that  misuse,  we  are  disposed  to 
regard  the  miser,  hoarding  his  money  and  his 
securities,  as  a  material  creature;  but  he  is 
above  all  things  an  idealist,  having  perverted 
ideals  and  cherishing  only  the  potentialities 
[42] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

of  wealth  and  poverty.  As  an  evidence  of  its 
correct  use  we  consider  the  man  of  research 
and  vision,  who  finds  in  physical  reactions  the 
explanation,  or  at  least  the  indication,  of  the 
great  processes  of  life,  a  materialist.  Now  a 
materialist  he  is,  but  he  is  also  a  true  seer,  and 
as  his  visions  are  borne  out  by  research,  he 
becomes  a  prophet. 

By  materialists  I  do  not  mean  those  phi- 
listines  who  try  to  reach  only  the  peaks  of 
business  and  pleasure.  They  are  not  material- 
ists in  the  sense  here  presented,  for  I  am 
proposing  materialism  as  a  philosophical  con- 
ception. They  are  not  philosophers  at  all  who 
are  strangers  to  those  gardens  of  delight  where 
all  the  oafs  pursue  their  simple  ways  and  do 
not  try  to  think.  The  substance  of  this  ma- 
terialism is  a  greater  faith  in  the  processes  of 
nature,  and  a  greater  belief  in  our  ability  to 
understand  them.  This  demands  strict  integ- 
rity of  thought.  There  is  no  place  in  it  for 
the  foxy  trickster  of  logic,  or  for  the  intellectual 
dodger  who  takes  a  conclusion  for  granted 
because  somebody  of  repute  has  reached  it 
before  him. 

It  is  remarkably  easy  to  let  others  do  our 

thinking  for  us,  and  in  many  respects  we  must. 

"The  innate  laziness  of  human  nature,"   as 

Professor  Sumner  called  it,  is  of  great  use.     We 

[43] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

surely  cannot  begin  at  the  beginning  of  knowl- 
edge and,  thanks  to  nobody,  find  out  every- 
thing for  ourselves.  But  when  we  acknowledge, 
complacently,  those  things  to  be  true  which 
we  know  are  not  true,  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
are  neither  fair  nor  honest.  Of  course,  we 
have  to  compromise  all  along  the  line.  We 
live  under  many  laws  which  we  do  not  believe 
to  be  just,  and  yet  we  submit.  But  if  we  can 
improve  them,  it  is  OUT  business  to  do  so.  We 
maintain  social  conditions  which  we  know  are 
absurd,  but  if  we  can  better  them  we  are  not 
dealing  righteously  if  we  do  not  try  to  do  so. 
We  make  advances  by  learning  more  and  then 
adjusting  our  affairs  to  conform  to  this  greater 
knowledge.  The  innate  laziness  of  human 
nature  is  only  one  of  our  many  qualities. 
When  it  dominates  us  we  go  backward. 

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  bring  forward 
a  few  arguments  concerning  the  measure  in 
which  human  life  would  be  augmented  and  the 
social  order  improved  if  we  were  to  welcome 
materialism,  not  only  into  literature,  but  into 
our  lives,  without  prejudice.  I  propose  to 
go  even  farther  than  this,  and  to  urge  the 
acceptance  of  as  much  materialism,  as  much 
of  the  mechanistic  view  of  life,  as  our  philos- 
ophy will  hold.  In  other  words,  my  plea  is, 
not  to  soil  the  sense  of  that  which  is  spiritual 
[44] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

by  loading  upon  it  those  things  which  we  can 
work  out  for  ourselves. 

There  is  no  possibility  that  we  shall  ever 
know  everything;  that  any  man  or  woman 
will  have  a  vision  of  the  whole  of  life.  We 
have  neither  the  organs  of  apprehension,  nor 
the  storage  capacity,  nor  yet  the  sense  of 
co-ordination.  The  truth,  by  which  I  mean 
all  the  facts  in  their  right  relation,  is  and 
always  will  be  beyond  us.  Some  of  us  see 
things  only  near  by,  and  others  are  far-sighted 
and  have  a  better  vision  of  the  distance  than 
of  that  which  is  near.  Some  are  marvelously 
gifted,  and  others  of  us — God  help  us! — are 
very  nearly  blind.  But  my  plea  is  against  the 
blindness  of  volition,  against  the  resolution 
not  to  see  that  which  is  before  us,  because  it 
is  easier  or  more  pleasant  or  comfortable  to 
look  the  other  wray.  There  will  always  be 
room,  far  over  and  above  all  that  we  can  learn 
and  know,  to  believe  in  God.  Legends  may 
fade  away  and  prophecies  of  old  may  crumble 
like  ancient  temples,  and  creeds  and  dogmas 
disappear  as  fog  in  the  sun,  but  the  catholic 
man  will  always  know  that  beyond  the  human 
knowledge  is  the  greater  expanse.  There  is 
a  vast  empire  beyond  life,  and  life  is  very, 
very  short. 

From  what  we  read  it  would  appear  that  the 
[451 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

philosophic  world  is  divided  into  two  camps, 
those  who  hold  to  the  mechanistic  theory, 
and  the  vitalists,  engaged  in  battle  a  Voutrance, 
with  no  quarter  given.  But  in  point  of  fact 
on  all  sides  are  earnest  men,  seeking  the  truth; 
and  just  as  we  have  learned  that  party  govern- 
ment does  not  assure  public  welfare,  so  we 
should  learn  that  advancement  in  knowledge 
and  understanding  is  not  to  be  accomplished 
by  fighting  for  the  one  side  or  the  other.  Let 
us  get  out  of  our  minds  the  legal  fiction  that 
the  truth  is  a  verdict  or  a  prize,  to  be  given 
to  the  conqueror  in  a  fight.  "There  are  two 
sides  to  every  question,"  is  the  first  peep  of 
the  pettifogger.  Very  often,  indeed,  there  are 
but  two  sides,  one  of  which  is  right  and  the 
other  wrong.  But  often  there  are  more  than 
two  sides;  a  question  may  be  polygonous  and 
have  more  sides  than  King  Solomon  had  wives. 
When  it  would  seem  that  every  movement, 
every  act,  every  thought  of  a  man  is  explained 
by  the  mechanics  of,  and  the  chemical  reaction 
within,  his  structure,  the  fact  remains  that 
he  is  a  conscious  entity,  with  grave  responsi- 
bilities. We  may  analyze  him  to  the  extent 
of  his  whole  being.  Then,  in  turn,  he  may 
synthesize,  and  we  are  foolish  indeed  to  quarrel 
over  the  nature  of  the  master  spirit  within 
him.  Foolish,  because  we  do  not  know,  and 
[46] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  most  we  can  get  out  of  our  discussion  is  a 
quarrel.  I  may  think  that  the  mechanistic 
theory  explains  everything,  and  proceed  to 
insult  you  for  thinking  otherwise,  and  rouse 
you  to  anger,  and  then,  when  all  is  over,  I  shall 
find  that  I  have  reached  the  limitations  of  my 
knowledge  long  before  and  have  maintained 
untenable  premises,  while  you  will  probably 
have  said  more  than  you  mean — and  neither 
of  us  will  be  right.  Let  us  seek  the  know- 
able  to  achieve  wisdom.  The  unknowable  will 
always  be  a  greater  field,  and  there  a  simple  faith 
will  help  us  more  than  a  cantankerous  dispute. 

There  is  no  easy  formula  whereby  the  truth 
may  be  achieved,  but  there  are  available 
working  hypotheses  whereby  we  may  advance 
toward  it.  The  danger-point,  the  hindrance, 
the  place  of  stumbling,  is  where  we  demand 
of  any  one  that  he  acknowledge  as  the  truth 
that  which  he  does  not  believe  to  be  so.  This 
seems  to  me  to  be  fundamentally  wrong.  The 
little  tricks  of  apologetics  whereby  one  says 
one  thing  and  means  another,  or  means  any- 
thing at  all,  will  not  do.  It  is  a  poor  plan 
to  talk  with  your  tongue  in  your  cheek. 

Now  let  us  assume  ourselves  to  be  material- 
ists as  far  as  we  can  be — not  as  far  as  we  care 
to,  or  are  willing  to  be — and  see  what  might 
happen. 

[47] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Nature  always  seems  to  be  wanting  to  do 
something.  It  is  always  busy.  It  seems 
sometimes  to  have  an  all-wise,  and  sometimes 
to  have  a  very  stupid  purpose.  Sometimes  it 
seems  malicious.  The  fact  is,  nature  is  always 
busy  acting  according  to  its  own  laws,  and  a 
great  deal  of  what  is  called  the  divinity  in  us 
consists  in  our  ability  to  make  nature  serve 
us  and  our  kind.  And  the  more  we  know  of 
nature  and  its  ways,  and  how  to  control  it,  and 
to  kill  and  utterly  destroy  those  forms  of  life 
that  are  inimical  to  human  welfare  and  growth, 
the  better  hope  we  shall  have  of  increasing  this 
divinity  and  approaching  the  great  light  of 
truth,  which  is  always  beyond  us,  but  which 
may  be  much  nearer  to  us  than  it  is  now. 

Let  us  consider  every  man  and  every  woman 
as  an  apparatus.  And  instead  of  attributing 
their  acts  to  the  good  or  evil  spirits  which 
inhabit  them,  let  us  consider  rather  their  several 
structures  and  seek  our  explanations  in  their 
reactions.  Science  has  only  touched  the  outer 
edge  of  these  things,  and  yet  it  has  gone  farther 
than  is  dreamed  of  by  those  who  do  not  know 
the  language.  But  if  we  close  our  minds  to 
the  light  that  is  dawning  there,  because  by 
an  unfortunate  neglect  we  did  not  cultivate 
a  scientific  understanding  when  they  were 
fallow,  we  are  ranging  ourselves  along  with 
[48] 


those  forces  of  denial  which  Goethe  recognized 
and  called  Mephistopheles. 

Now,  this  is  no  idea  for  stupid  credulity 
toward  science,  but  it  is  a  plea  for  an  open 
mind.  So,  if  we  see  the  most  beautiful  thing 
in  the  world,  a  mother  turning  to  her  child, 
we  shall  find  our  vision  enlarged  by  the  knowl- 
edge that  she  is  acting  in  conformance  with 
unerring  physical  and  chemical  laws;  that 
definite  reactions  take  place  within  her;  and 
that,  if  she  is  devoid  of  mother-love,  the  reason 
is  that  a  part  of  her  equipment  is  atrophied 
and  so  out  of  use.  The  exquisite  nicety  with 
which  the  good  mother  meets  the  needs  and 
welfare  of  her  child  is  a  development  of  the  ages; 
innumerable  generations  of  loving  mothers 
have  contributed  to  the  type  that  can  do  this 
thing  so  wonderfully  well.  She  is  even  more 
beautiful  than  the  carved  and  painted  Madon- 
nas that  we  go  thousands  of  miles  to  see.  Now 
this  very  beauty  is  all  around  us,  in  our  homes, 
everywhere,  and  we  should  have  eyes  to  see 
it,  if  we  did  not  assume  that  it  is  entirely  due 
to  a  casual  spirit,  inhabiting  a  temple  of  clay, 
with  us  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow.  We  pay 
all  sorts  of  prices  for  pictures  of  beauty  that 
show  us  the  phenomenon  of  mother-love,  and 
we  do  well  to  cherish  the  ideals  that  are  so 
clearly  shown  there.  But  we  have  just  such 
[49] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

human  marvels  with  us,  everywhere,  with  all 
the  wonderful  reactions  and  responses  taking 
place  before  our  eyes,  and  we  should  be  able 
to  see  them  if  we  only  had  a  larger  understand- 
ing of  their  nature. 

If  you  and  I  go  into  a  crowded  room  to  hear 
a  lecture,  a  room  deficient  in  fresh  air,  we 
know  why  we  cannot  follow  the  speaker.  We 
are  far  enough  advanced  to  know  that  our 
thinking  apparatus  does  not  work  well,  for  a 
purely  chemical  reason.  This  is  materialism. 

The  modern  method  of  meeting  disease  is 
much  more  material  than  that  of  medieval 
days.  The  Holy  Inquisition  was  convinced, 
because  of  its  closed  mind,  that  disease  was 
a  manifestation  of  a  spirit  called  the  devil. 
The  more  or  less  worthy  fathers  sought  with 
praiseworthy  diligence  to  find  some  one  in 
league  with  Satan  whom  they  regarded  as  his 
agents,  and  they  proceeded  with  rack  and 
wheel  to  bring  about  a  betterment  of  con- 
ditions. The  modern  method  of  driving  out 
this  same  devil  is  wholly  unpicturesque,  and 
the  literary  merit  of  the  exorcisms,  or  orders 
to  clean  up,  is  far  inferior  to  that  found  in  the 
liturgy.  Literary  merit  is  subordinated  to  the 
more  important  features  to  be  found  in  the 
determination  of  what  steps  shall  be  taken. 
This  is  as  it  should  be;  it  is  a  nearer  approach 
[60] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

to  Things  in  their  Right  Order  which  we  have 
set  up  as  our  idea  of  the  truth.  It  is  no  argu- 
ment against  literary  merit;  the  point  is  that 
literary  merit  is  not  the  dominant  feature  in 
the  process  of  overcoming  disease. 

This  is  no  place  to  discuss  the  fertilization 
of  the  eggs  of  animals  by  chemical  means,  or  the 
remarkable  researches  of  physiological  labora- 
tories, which  add  so  much  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  processes  of  life.  But  if  we  proceed  along 
this  line  of  thought  and  look  for  the  physical 
causes  of  acts,  we  shall  recognize  the  bearing  of 
physical  conditions  upon  the  human  will.  We 
shall  greatly  enlarge  our  understanding  by  it, 
and  prepare  the  way  for  better  social  con- 
ditions. In  doing  this  we  are  not  combating 
spirituality  or  denying  religion;  we  are  seeking 
a  higher  plane  from  which  to  consider  life. 

If  we  are  only  informed,  for  instance,  of  the 
whole  process  of  anger,  of  what  poisons  are 
secreted  under  it,  of  the  nerve  reactions  where- 
by understanding  is  inhibited  and  the  attention 
narrowed  down  to  an  overpowering  lust  to 
destroy,  we  should  pity  the  poor  madman  that 
the  man  in  anger  is,  but  we  should  not  listen 
to  him;  we  should  know  that  his  wrath  is  a 
pathological  condition,  and  treat  him  accord- 
ingly. 

If  our  equipment  of  the  mechanism  which 
[51] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

functions  as  understanding  is  superior  to  our 
equipment  of  that  mechanism  which  responds 
to  anger — no  matter  in  how  intimate  a  manner 
they  may  interact — we  are  in  a  position  to 
control  ourselves;  and  if  the  mechanism  which 
functions  as  sympathy  is  in  good  working 
order,  we  shall  have  still  better  control  of  our 
wrath. 

So,  with  the  mechanistic  conception  of  life 
in  mind,  we  should  judge  with  far  more  dis- 
crimination than  at  present.  In  sitting  in 
judgment  upon  a  man  charged,  let  us  say,  with 
assault,  we  should  by  no  means  have  finished 
the  task  when  we  had  determined  whether  he 
committed  the  act  or  not.  There  should  also 
be  established,  so  far  as  possible,  every  reaction 
within  the  man  which  led  up  to  it.  By  that 
time  a  righteous  judge  would  know  what  to  do, 
but  not  before. 

With  more  materialism,  more  knowledge  of 
the  mechanics  and  the  reactions  of  life,  the 
reasons  for  being  angry  would  decrease.  We 
do  not  grow  angry  at  a  machine.  We  look 
for  the  cause  of  the  trouble,  if  it  will  not 
operate.  And  in  the  very  measure  that  we 
study  the  process  and  reactions  which  lead 
men  to  act  we  increase  our  understanding. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  consider  our  neighbor 
solely  as  a  spiritual  entity,  taking  for  granted 
[52] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

that  he  always  does  as  fancy  dictates,  we  are 
very  likely  to  lose  patience  over  him,  because 
we  place  the  entire  responsibility  for  every- 
thing he  does  upon  the  poor  man's  fancy. 
"How  could  he  be  so  cruel?"  we  ask.  As 
materialists  we  should  at  most  blame  his 
judgment.  If  he  is  cruel,  we  know  that  his 
sympathetic  mechanism  is  atrophied,  perhaps 
because  of  his  bad  judgment  in  not  forcing  it  to 
function;  but  there  is  no  more  occasion  to  be 
vindictive  toward  him  than  "to  strike  a  blind 
man  who  has  lost  his  sight  through  carelessness. 

This  is  the  method  of  materialistic  philos- 
ophy: to  seek  the  stimulus  to  each  reaction 
as  far  as  we  may.  There  is  no  occasion  to 
tangle  up  the  honest  search  for  the  causes  of 
phenomena,  human  or  otherwise,  with  the  an- 
cient agony  about  free  will.  We  know  that 
the  faculty  of  judgment  is  one  of  the  functions 
of  the  human  creature,  and  we  also  know  that 
an  act  is  a  response  to  a  stimulus  and  may 
be  justly  considered  from  a  mechanistic  point 
of  view. 

With  the  development  of  materialism,  good 
taste  will  rise  to  a  higher  level.  It  will  cease 
to  be  a  shallow  imitation  of  one  another  by 
people  in  the  name  of  style;  a  buying  of  things 
expensive  because  scarce.  We  shall  know  and 
confess  frankly  when  our  esthetic  responses 
6  [53] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

are  induced,  and  there  will  be  no  occasion 
to  lie  about  what  gives  us  delight.  We  shall 
also  be  unable,  even  among  the  unthoughtful, 
to  gain  a  reputation  for  good  taste  by  declaring 
everything  we  see  to  be  ugly.  We  shall  know 
the  value  of  the  esthetic  sense,  and  cultivate 
it  accordingly.  So,  if  we  truly  seek  beauty 
we  shall  find  it,  and  the  dawn  of  a  new  era 
of  art  may  be  upon  us. 

And  consider  how  practical  its  workings 
will  be!  With  larger  understanding,  we  shall 
know  better  how  to  consider  those  distressing 
things  which  are  brought  to  our  attention  in 
the  name  of  Art — from  which  we  fellows  of 
the  earlier  vintages  suffered  so  sorely  in  our 
youth.  We  shall  know,  when  the  next  in- 
flux of  neo-realists  is  at  hand,  that  they 
offend  against  the  truth  by  publishing  in  a 
false  relation  to  other  things  what  they  desire 
to  set  forth,  and  that  they  offend  against  good 
taste  exactly  as  does  the  bill-board.  It  is  not 
right  to  force  upon  you  and  me,  as  we  go 
our  quiet  way,  photochemical  reactions  which 
cause  us  distress.  We  do  not,  for  instance, 
want  to  chew  Somebody's  Superior  Plug 
Tobacco.  In  our  present  unenlightenment  we 
are  obliged  to  receive  the  impression  that  we 
should  chew  it,  thousands  of  times,  because  we 
do  not  know  or  think  about  photochemistry 
[54] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

and  the  injury  done  to  the  nervous  system  by 
repeated  reactions  which  cause  irritability. 
If  we  know,  as  photochemistry  would  teach 
us,  that  the  effect  of  bill-boards  on  the  health 
of  the  nerves  of  a  community  is  bad,  we  should 
soon  be  rid  of  a  very  common  nuisance. 

In  considering  plays,  it  is  maintained  on 
good  authority  that  the  plot  is  85  per  cent, 
of  the  play,  and  the  lines  not  over  15.  Beauti- 
ful expression,  exquisite  phrases,  perfection  of 
style,  will  not  carry  a  play  that  is  not  a  real 
drama.  But  with  a  good  play  the  lines  may 
be  indifferent — it  will  carry  itself.  "You  can- 
not kill  a  good  play,"  is  another  way  of  putting 
it.  In  considering  life  we  are  disposed  to 
devote  85  per  cent,  or  more  of  our  attention  to 
talk,  guesses,  idle  speculation,  and  miscellane- 
ous wondering,  and  15  per  cent,  or  less  to  a 
consideration  of  the  nature  of  vital  processes — 
which  is  where  we  err.  If  we  can  get  far 
enough  ahead  to  recognize  as  due  to  physical 
causes  as  many  of  the  phenomena  of  life  as  we 
can  understand  to  be  of  that  nature,  we  shall 
make  headway  in  understanding.  There  will 
be  abundant  opportunity  for  metaphysics  after 
that.  As  soon  as  we  recognize  a  physical 
process  we  may  begin  to  study  it  with  some 
hope  of  enlightenment.  So  long  as  we  bar 
physics  and  chemistry  in  the  study  of  the 
[55] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

phenomena   of  life,   we   close   our  minds  to 
enlightenment. 

An  interesting  argument  in  favor  of  the 
mechanistic  view  of  life  is  the  absurd  similarity 
of  our  emotional  reactions;  and  of  these  the 
most  monotonously  recurrent  is  our  inter- 
minable justification  of  ourselves.  Surely 
this  is  an  automatic  reaction!  On  every  hand 
we  see  people  doing  absurd  things,  each  an 
immediate  response  to  some  stimulus  and 
without  any  forethought  whatever.  Then 
comes  the  justification,  which  seldom  has  any 
relation  to  the  real  cause.  If  we  looked  for  the 
true  reactions  which  take  place  in  people 
we  should  not  be  so  medievally  credulous 
when  they  explain  themselves.  We  should 
know  better.  If  in  an  apparatus  we  want  to 
induce  an  electric  current,  we  proceed  to 
apply  the  stimulus  by  mechanical  means.  If 
the  current  does  not  generate,  we  know  that 
there  is  something  wrong  with  the  machine. 
Under  the  right  conditions  and  with  the  proper 
stimulus,  a  current  is  sure  to  be  generated. 
There  is  no  reason  why,  with  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  human  mechanism,  the  sym- 
pathetic reactions  should  not  likewise  be 
developed,  be  induced  to  respond  more  readily 
than  they  do  at  present.  In  this  way  human 
kindness  would  greatly  increase,  and  the  world 
156} 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

would  be  a  far  better  place  to  live  in.  Unfor- 
tunately, many  are  developed  in  remarkable 
measure  except  as  to  their  equipment  of  sym- 
pathy, which  is  woefully  inert.  Such  power- 
ful men  are  sometimes  of  great  value  to  their 
kind,  and  sometimes  their  works  are  a  verita- 
ble pestilence.  But  your  conscientious  mate- 
rialist would  not  give  way  to  anger  against 
such  a  man,  and  thus  put  his  own  faculties 
out  of  operation.  He  would  recognize  his 
abilities  and  his  possible  use  as  a  member  of 
society,  point  out  his  deficit  of  sympathy,  and 
seek  to  find  a  stimulus  that  would  produce  the 
necessary  reaction  in  him.  The  powerful  man 
without  sympathy  would  be  very  loath  to 
admit  himself  to  be  such  a  mental  cripple,  and 
would,  under  pressure  of  intelligent  public 
opinion,  try  by  his  acts  to  prove  the  contrary. 
Under  certain  conditions  certain  fish  will 
swim  toward  the  light.  This  is  not  curiosity 
on  their  part,  nor  does  one  of  their  number 
influence  the  others  to  do  as  he  does.  This 
passion,  this  urgent  drive  toward  the  light,  is 
brought  about  by  adding  a  chemical  reagent 
to  the  water  in  which  they  swim.  They 
straightway  leave  everything  and  swim  toward 
the  light,  because  of  certain  photochemical 
reactions  which  take  place  within  their  nervous 
systems. 

[57J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Somewhat  like  this  is  the  phenomenon  of  a 
nation  going  to  war,  of  which  the  Germans 
furnished  a  vivid  example  in  1914.  Where 
peace  and  order  reign,  something  suddenly 
happens — newspapers  rave,  orators  shout,  brass 
bands  play,  and  then  there  is  neither  peace  nor 
order.  The  stimulus,  whatever  it  is,  has  in- 
duced a  secretion  of  anger  bodies  which  cause 
a  condition  of  wrath  which  drives  to  war. 
Just  as  the  fish  are  pointed  and  driven  toward 
the  light  by  a  reaction  which  takes  place 
within  them,  so  do  men  go  forth  to  kill  and 
destroy.  Sympathy  and  reason  become  empty 
phrases,  glib  upon  the  tongue,  but  crowded  out 
of  consciousness  by  the  passion  for  ruin. 

Very  complex  indeed  are  we,  and  very  diffi- 
cult to  understand,  but  so  is  a  sewing-machine 
and  so  is  a  hydraulic  press  until  we  under- 
stand the  mechanical  principles  under  which 
they  operate.  Now  men  and  women  are 
machines,  vastly  complex,  but  operating  under 
definite  laws;  and  the  golden  rule  to  a  better 
understanding  of  them  is  to  learn  the  nature 
of  their  reactions. 

Let  us  make  a  rough  examination  of  the 
interesting  phenomenon  of  a  bad  man  becom- 
ing good.  The  mechanism  of  his  sympathy  is 
inert,  and  his  responses  to  the  stimulus  of  any 
wish  or  passing  fancy  are  without  inhibitions. 
[58] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

Then,  under  the  stimulus  of  a  friend  whom  he 
trusts,  or  aroused  by  a  memory,  or  called  to 
consciousness  by  a  bar  of  music  or  a  passing 
smell,  the  sympathetic  mechanism  is  aroused. 
This  will  automatically  check  the  responses 
to  desire  which  were  theretofore  without  check, 
and  his  angle  of  vision  will  be  changed. 
Nerves,  like  muscles,  respond  more  quickly 
through  exercise,  and  by  repeated  and  diligent 
exercise  he  may  reach  a  condition  of  efficiency 
to  society.  Then  he  will  be  good. 

The  burglar  who  goes  out  to  rob  your  house 
is  seeking  his  welfare  in  his  work,  just  as  you 
and  I  do  in  ours.  If  he  cannot  consider  your 
welfare  in  his  business  he  is  like  a  great  many 
of  the  rest  of  us ;  he  finds  life  a  little  too  com- 
plicated to  take  in  other  interests  than  his  own. 
You  are  his  legitimate  prey,  just  as  your  com- 
petitor in  business  is  your  legitimate  prey. 
Socially,  you  and  I  differ  from  the  burglar  in 
that  we  play  the  game  according  to  different 
rules,  and  we  like  to  feel  that  we  are  of  some 
use  to  the  world  at  large.  The  burglar  has  a 
narrower  view,  and  his  social  aspirations  and 
desire  for  usefulness  are  restricted  to  the  under- 
world. Then,  too,  he  is  probably  undeveloped 
in  sympathy  and  imagination.  His  sensitive- 
ness to  emotions  of  sympathy  is  probably 
slight.  But  neither  sympathy  nor  imagination 
[59] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

nor  sensitiveness  to  anything  except  pain  may 
be  driven  into  his  soul  by  making  him  suffer  in 
order  to  satisfy  your  resentment  against  him. 
Your  resentment  may  drive  fear  into  him,  and 
through  fear  he  may  cease  to  be  a  burglar; 
but  statistics  do  not  encourage  us  much  in  the 
hope  for  this. 

We  have  so  tangled  up  goodness  with  dogma 
that  the  very  thought  of  righteousness  has 
become  almost  an  offense  to  many  because  of 
the  assumptions  of  dogma  that  righteousness 
must  conform  to  it.  Under  the  mechanistic 
view,  dogma  will  cease  to  offend,  and  will 
become  an  exponent  of  mental  equipment. 
One  of  the  most  persistent  of  nuisances,  the 
hypocrite,  will  then  find  his  way  of  life  so  diffi- 
cult that  he  will  be  likely  to  choose  another. 
Thus,  if  I  see  you  in  dire  distress,  but,  being 
too  lazy  to  save  you,  I  piously  clasp  my  hands 
and  say,  "It  was  the  will  of  God  and  must  be 
for  the  best,"  I  may  claim  to  be  spiritually 
minded,  but  you  will  know  better,  and  so  will 
everybody  else  who  has  the  mechanistic  con- 
ception of  life.  You  will  know  very  well  that 
my  way  is  not  God's  way;  you  will  know  that 
I  am  a  creature  of  inertia  and  that  I  am  trying 
to  call  my  fault  something  that  it  is  not.  In 
fact,  under  this  view  of  life  we  may  shout 
and  disclaim  about  our  wonderful  qualities 
[60] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

and  how  our  hearts  are  bursting  with  love  and 
sympathy  for  our  kind,  but  our  appeals  will 
fall  upon  empty  ears,  because  the  scientific 
way  of  thinking  will  have  become  current,  and 
then  all  the  lawyers  in  the  land  will  be  unable 
to  help  us. 

Not  a  thing  that  has  been  said  in  this  essay 
is  a  denial  of  the  human  soul.  You  are  you 
and  I  am  I,  and  within  us  both  is  the  Mystery. 
But  to  attribute  a  single  thought  or  a  single 
act  to  it  that  may  be  attributed  to  causes 
which  we  can  understand  is  a  denial  of  the 
belief  that  the  truth  shall  make  us  free. 


ADVENTURES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 


A  Little  Homily  on  the  Truth 

WE  sorely  need  a  clearer  conception  of 
the  truth.  We  need  it  in  the  business 
of  living;  especially  as  a  means  of 
avoiding  misunderstandings.  If  we  have  an  ab- 
stract idea  of  what  the  truth  is  we  are  less  likely 
to  err  in  the  belief  that  we  are  right  before 
we  know  the  truth.  In  adventuring  upon  a 
theory  which  for  the  past  few  years  has  seemed 
to  me  to  hold  we  shall  hardly  be  charged  with 
applying  new  meanings  to  old  words  if  we 
say  that  facts  and  the  truth  are  not  the  same. 
Facts  are  parts  of  the  truth,  just  as  wheels, 
rods,  levers,  and  the  like  are  parts  of  a  machine. 
If  we  say  "the  whole  truth"  every  time  we 
refer  to  the  truth,  it  might  make  the  idea  more 
clear,  but  let  us  agree  to  consider  it  so,  with- 
out the  need  of  saying  two  words  where  one 
will  do. 

If  you  strike  me,  that  becomes  a  fact  as 
[62] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

soon  as.  you  have  done  it.  Whether  you  have 
struck  me  or  not  is  a  question  of  fact  and  not 
a  question  of  truth.  The  truth  may  be  that 
you  struck  me  to  call  my  attention  to  impend- 
ing danger,  or  you  may  have  struck  me  in 
anger,  or  the  blow  may  be  an  unimportant 
episode  in  a  long  fight  between  us. 

The  truth,  as  I  conceive  it,  is  all  the  facts 
in  their  right  or  correct  relation,  the  relation 
which  they  must  bear  to  one  another  when  the 
truth  is  attained.  Thus  the  truth  becomes  an 
abstract  thing,  because  we  know  what  it  is, 
although  we  may  not  know  it.  Rarely,  in- 
deed, are  we  able  to  gather  all  the  facts  in 
relation  to  a  subject,  on  the  one  hand,  or  to 
correlate  them,  on  the  other;  nevertheless,  we 
must  do  this  if  we  would  know  the  truth. 

If  this  definition  is  unfamiliar,  if  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  consider  the  truth  in  this  sense, 
I  think  it  will  do  us  no  harm  to  bear  it  in  mind. 
In  courts  of  law,  according  to  current  practice, 
it  might  not  hold,  but  we  are,  fortunately, 
under  no  obligation  to  order  our  thinking  ac- 
cording to  processes  of  law. 

If  we  exalt  the  truth  and  reverence  it,  the 
glib  and  hysterical  brothers  and  sisters  who, 
grasping  a  single  fact,  proceed  to  preach  that 
and  that  only  as  the  truth,  will  cause  less 
annoyance.  We  may  acknowledge  their  facts 
[63] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

as  facts,  which  is  all  they  can  ask  of  us.  If 
we  still  remain  unconvinced  of  the  truth  of 
their  preachments  we  shall  be  contradicting 
no  one.  The  truth  is  very  great,  very  large, 
and  when  Lessing  prayed  that  to  him  be  given 
the  privilege  to  seek  the  truth  rather  than  to 
know  it,  because  to  know  it  he  was  not  worthy, 
he  spoke  as  one  of  the  wisest  of  men.  To 
seek  it,  to  get  nearer  to  it,  sometimes  perhaps 
to  get  a  glimpse  of  it,  is  all  that  we  may  hope 
for;  it  is  the  best  that  we  can  do. 

Suppose  you  and  I  look  at  a  tree  on  a  hill- 
side. We  see  only  the  leaves,  and  we  observe 
that  the  tree  is  green.  The  tree  is  green; 
that  is  a  fact.  Let  us  make  a  note  of  it.  Then 
suppose  we  go  a  distance  away  and  look  at  it 
again.  The  tree  is  blue.  It  is  idle  for  us  to 
say,  "It  seems  blue,  but  it  really  is  green," 
because  our  very  organs  which  gave  the  reac- 
tion of  green  a  while  ago  now  give  the  reaction 
of  blue.  By  the  same  token  that  the  tree  was 
green  when  we  saw  it  near  by  it  is  blue  when 
we  see  it  from  afar.  So  let  us  make  a  second 
note:  the  tree  is  blue.  Here  we  have  two 
contradictory  statements  of  fact,  neither  false, 
and  yet  neither  the  whole  truth.  The  truth 
about  the  color  of  the  tree  involves  a  great 
range  of  subjects,  including  the  physics  of 
light,  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  the 
[64] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

human  eye,  photochemistry — in  short,  a  vast 
store  of  learning  and  understanding. 

Many  facts  which  seem  irreconcilable  be- 
come harmonious  parts  of  the  truth  when  all 
the  facts  are  arranged  in  their  right  order. 
So  the  truth  should  make  us  humble  and 
patient  with  one  another.  None  of  us  has 
faculties  of  universal  co-ordination,  and  our 
blind  spots,  instead  of  being  little  delinquencies 
of  perception,  are  in  reality  vast  areas.  The 
most  we  can  claim  is  that  we  have  a  few  sighted 
spots.  To  see  all  the  facts  in  their  right 
relation  is  what  we  might  call  the  Olympian 
Vision. 

II 

The  Green  Tree 

The  first  time  I  visited  Charlotte,  North 
Carolina,  I  had  some  business  to  transact  with 
a  charming,  soft-spoken  old  gentleman  who 
wore  a  broad-brimmed  felt  hat.  When  our 
business  was  completed  for  the  day  we  walked 
leisurely  about  the  town.  ' '  Charlotte, ' '  said  the 
gentleman  of  the  sombrero,  "is  all  to'  up  over  a 
dispute  which  is  ragin'  amongst  our  people." 

"What  is  the  cause  of  it?"  I  asked. 

"Free  grace  and  fo'ordination,"  he  an- 
swered. 

[05] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

I  was  delighted,  and  wrote  a  long  letter  home 
about  it  that  night.  Charlotte  seemed  so  very 
archaic!  This  was  many  years  ago,  and  since 
then  Charlotte  has  grown  to  be  a  great  manu- 
facturing town  with  a  grand  hotel  and  clubs 
and  all  the  things  that  modern  industry  and 
wealth  bring  about.  In  those  days  there  were 
the  Presbyterians  and  Baptists  on  the  one  side 
and  the  Methodists  and  Lutherans  on  the  other, 
and  the  adherents  of  the  little  Episcopal 
Church,  who  were  divided  on  the  question. 
These  included  substantially  the  whole  white 
population.  Now,  unless  I  am  sorely  mis- 
taken, Charlotte  has  ceased  to  worry  over 
"free  grace  and  fo'ordination " ;  she  is  modern 
and  up-to-date.  But  if  my  surmise  be  correct, 
she  has  gone  backward  intellectually;  she  only 
thinks  herself  modern;  she  has  become  com- 
mercial and  has  ceased  to  participate  in  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  day.  For  the  old  ques- 
tion whereby  Charlotte  was  "all  to*  up"  abides 
in  philosophy.  Turn  whichever  way  we  will, 
we  meet  that  same  old  nagging  problem, 
teasing  us,  on  the  one  hand,  with  what  seems 
to  be  proof  that  we  have  no  free  will  at  all, 
and  insisting,  on  the  other,  that  a  very  good 
reason  why  we  have  free  will  is  because  we 
know  we  have  it. 

Many  of  us  have  ceased  to  be  Presbyterians 
J66] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

or  Baptists  or  Methodists  or  Episcopalians, 
but  as  soon  as  we  venture  into  biology  we 
find  ourselves  urged  to  join  either  the  Mechan- 
ist or  the  Vitalist  denomination,  and  there  we 
find  the  same  old  dispute  raging  again  among 
our  biological  people. 

This  is,  indeed,  the  comedy  domain  of  phi- 
losophy. The  Greeks  used  to  dispute  over  it. 
St.  Paul  appeared  to  have  the  problem  solved, 
and  so  did  St.  Augustine.  Pelagius  differed 
from  them,  and  so  did  his  followers — with  some 
warmth.  The  harmony  between  Luther  and 
John  Calvin  over  the  matter  was  not  striking; 
Servetus  had  an  opinion  which  went  up  in 
smoke;  the  savants  of  Charlotte,  North 
Carolina,  talked  themselves  out  over  it — and 
now  behold  the  biologists  in  battle  array!  If 
it  were  given  to  us  to  live  to  a  prodigious  num- 
ber of  years  and  to  observe  the  earth  from  afar, 
we  should  see  the  philosophers  in  dispute  over 
this  problem  throughout  the  ages,  never  agree- 
ing and  never  persuading  one  another.  It  is  a 
very  enduring  subject. 

But  is  not  this  dispute  over  the  question 
whether  we  have  free  will  or  not  very  like  a 
dispute  that  we  might  engage  in  over  the  color 
of  a  tree — whether  it  be  green  or  blue?  It 
hardly  seems  worth  while  to  boast  or  to  grow 
angry  in  protesting  that  we  have  absolute  free 
[67] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

will,  when  a  little  surgical  operation  of  one  sort 
or  another,  or  a  shock,  or  a  blow  upon  the  head, 
may  change  our  nature  entirely.  Why  not 
proceed  along  the  mechanistic  way  seeking  the 
mechanical,  physical,  and  chemical  causes  of 
every  act,  and  thus  gather  as  many  facts  as 
we  can?  If  every  act  seems  to  be  a  response 
to  a  stimulus,  why  deny  it?  We  shall  not  have 
achieved  the  truth  when  we  have  learned  the 
exact  process  of  every  act,  but  we  shall  be 
much  wiser  than  we  are  now.  We  shall  ad- 
vance toward  the  truth  when  we  learn  the  rela- 
tion to  one  another  of  those  processes  of  which 
we  are  now  so  ignorant.  And  if  from  the  study 
of  the  facts  at  hand  we  reach  the  conclusion 
that  we  have  no  free  will  at  all,  but  are  mere 
automata,  with  no  power  of  choice  or  selection 
throughout  our  lives,  is  it  not  time  to  pause 
and  admit  that  we  may  not  have  all  the  facts 
yet?  Also  that  such  as  we  have  may  not  be 
in  their  right  order  before  our  vision? 

There  are  some  verses  by  John  Godfrey  Saxe, 
called  "The  Blind  Men  and  the  Elephant," 
which  are  very  instructive.  According  to  Saxe, 
six  wise  men  of  Indostan,  all  of  them  very  wise, 
but  all  of  them  blind,  went  to  see  the  elephant. 
One  examined  its  side  and  declared  the  elephant 
was  very  like  a  wall;  another,  feeling  its  trunk, 
was  sure  the  elephant  was  very  like  a  snake; 
[68] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

another  concluded  from  its  leg  that  it  was 
very  like  a  tree;  another,  examining  one  of  its 
tusks,  knew  that  the  elephant  was  very  like  a 
spear;  the  expert  who  examined  its  ear  found 
it  to  resemble  a  fan,  and  the  authority  who 
grasped  its  tail  was  equally  certain  that  the 
elephant  was  very  like  a  rope.  According  to 
the  legend,  they  are  still  disputing  over  it. 

Now  the  truth  is  bigger  than  an  elephant, 
and  our  vision  of  it  is  narrower  than  the  ob- 
servations of  each  of  the  blind  men.  And  we 
should  bear  in  mind  that  they  were  right,  every- 
one of  them.  Each  had  a  fact;  none  knew 
the  truth.  None  had  a  theory  of  the  truth; 
each  knew  what  he  knew,  and  that  was  enough 
for  him.  We  can  well  imagine  one  of  them 
saying,  "If  a  thing  is  so,  it's  so,  and  you  can't 
get  around  it;  my  senses  bear  me  witness;  the 
elephant  is  very  like  a  snake." 

If  we  have  a  good  working  method  of  dealing 
with  facts  it  is  a  good  thing  to  hold  to  it  just 
as  we  do  well  to  hold  fast  to  the  fact  that  the 
tree  is  green  when  we  look  at  it  near  by.  It 
seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  truth.  And  the 
mechanistic  theory,  which  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  spooks  or  ghosts  or  with  vital 
sparks  with  qualities  that  are  not  material, 
is  helpful,  wholesome,  and  illuminating.  It 
makes  for  clean  thinking.  It  will  not  counte- 
6  [69] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

nance  the  Pickwickian  point  of  view,  which  is 
very  popular  and  current  in  our  day.  It  pro- 
vides that  facts  be  gathered  by  observation  and 
the  study  of  cause  and  effect.  It  also  seems 
to  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  every  act  is  the 
only  one  possible  under  conditions  as  they 
exist.  Now  if  this  reasoning  appears  sound, 
let  us,  instead  of  frothing  at  the  mouth  and 
denouncing  the  sincere  men  who  have  reached 
these  conclusions,  admit  it — as  a  part  of  the 
truth. 

If  through  another  chain  of  reasoning,  or 
through  consciousness,  or  by  any  other  means, 
we  come  to  a  conclusion  opposed  to  this,  there 
is  no  occasion  to  boast  that  the  first  conclusion 
is  disproved.  If  we  reach  both  conclusions, 
we  may  know  that  we  have  not  yet  achieved  the 
truth,  but,  for  aught  we  know,  both  may  be 
right.  That  we  have  free  will  and  that  we 
have  not  free  will  may  be,  both  of  them,  parts 
of  the  truth,  just  as  the  opposed  statements 
that  the  tree  is  green  and  that  it  is  blue  are 
parts  of  the  truth. 

We  may  say  that  the  whole  organization  of 
human  conduct  is  based  upon  the  free  will  of 
the  individual;  but  the  organization  of  human 
conduct,  like  many  another  good  thing,  is 
based  in  large  part  upon  fancy.  When  we 
consider  acts  from  anear  we  might  as  well 
[70] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

admit  that  free  will  seems  to  play  very  little, 
if  any,  part  in  them.  Here  is  the  human 
machine  with  its  equipment,  the  consciousness 
including  a  part  of  that  group  of  records  and 
nerve  centers  which  are  "connected  up/'  the 
connecting  up  occurring  automatically  along 
the  line  of  least  resistance;  and  then,  given  the 
stimulus,  the  one  and  only  reaction  which  can 
occur  does  occur.  There  would  need  to  be  a 
difference  in  the  equipment  or  the  stimulus 
to  bring  about  a  different  reaction.  The  con- 
clusion, you  observe,  is  precisely  the  same  as 
that  reached  by  the  late  and  occasionally 
lamented  John  Calvin,  except  that  he  main- 
tained that  every  current  through  the  colloidal 
content  of  every  nerve  was  a  special,  volitional 
act  of  the  Deity,  "for  His  own  glory." 

This  view,  that  every  act  is  automatic  if 
considered  by  itself,  has  great  merit.  If  we 
consider  it  to  be  a  part  of  the  truth,  we  are 
likely  to  have  far  more  abundant  charity  for 
one  another.  By  it  we  enlarge  our  sympathy. 
For  instance,  we  may  say  that  everybody 
always  does  his  best  at  the  time  he  acts.  If 
he  does  evil,  there  is  a  reason  for  it,  a  structural 
reason.  His  sympathetic  equipment  may  be 
atrophied.  Or  he  may  be  angry.  In  either 
case  we  are  dealing  with  facts  close  at  hand  and 
our  business  is  with  his  condition.  The  cause 
[71] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

of  it  may  be  due  to  his  grandfather,  or  to  a 
false  leading  hi  his  early  childhood.  We  should 
diagnose  his  case  and  determine  what  part  of 
his  equipment  is  atrophied  or  what  part  so 
congested  that  his  way  was  the  path  of  crime. 
And  if  he  is  angry  we  should  regard  him  as  a 
nervous  invalid  until  his  attack  is  over  and  the 
anger  bodies  are  eliminated  from  his  system 
or  until  his  injured  brain  cells  are  restored. 

There  is  an  illuminating  book  by  Doctor 
Crile,  of  Cleveland,  on  The  Origin  and  Nature 
of  the  Emotions,  that  is  very  enlightening  about 
anger.  He  postulates  that  by  evolution  we 
have  developed  what  he  calls  "nociceptors," 
which  give  the  warning  of  pain  in  the  presence 
of  danger,  and  that  these  warnings  are  given 
according  to  the  experience  of  the  race.  The 
equipment  provides  against  such  external  in- 
juries as  the  goring  and  tearing  by  an  animal's 
teeth  in  far  greater  measure  than  against  the 
more  modern  devices  of  swift-moving  bullets 
and  very  sharp  instruments,  because  the  ex- 
perience of  the  race  against  teeth  is  so  much 
greater  than  with  bullets  and  swords.  It  is 
imaginable  that  if  a  sword  were  sharp  enough 
and  thin  enough  and  swung  with  sufficient 
speed,  the  old  Chinese  legend  of  the  master 
headsman  might  almost  escape  fiction.  In 
this,  it  may  be  recalled,  the  executioner  gra- 
[721 


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ciously  gave  a  pinch  of  snuff  to  each  of  his 
victims,  who  remained  comfortably  unaware 
that  his  head  had  been  severed  from  his  body. 
By  the  sneezes  which  followed  the  perfect 
swordsmanship  was  revealed;  the  heads  rolled 
off,  and  the  surprised  offenders  proceeded  to 
die  with  all  haste  and  propriety. 

Another  interesting  warning  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  we  are  ticklish  in  our  ears  and  nostrils 
and  on  the  soles  of  our  feet,  where  buzzing 
insects  are  likely  to  sting. 

Now  in  danger  these  warnings  elicit  the 
response  either  of  flight  or  of  turning  and 
facing  it,  and  so  we  become  either  afraid  or 
angry.  Doctor  Crile  notes  two  features  in 
connection  with  these  emotions  which  are  in- 
teresting in  regard  to  what  we  are  discussing: 
he  finds  that  during  the  processes  of  anger  and 
fear  we  suffer  inhibitions  of  all  other  faculties 
than  those  which  are  of  value  in  fighting  or 
running  away.  We  are  useless,  inefficient,  in- 
competent, in  every  other  respect.  When  we 
are  angry  we  have  not  our  normal  equipment 
because  the  greater  part  is  blocked  off,  and  we 
are  no  more  our  complete  selves  than  when,  if 
ever,  we  are  very  drunk.  The  second  observa* 
tion  is  that  under  anger  or  fear  there  occurs  a 
destruction  of  brain  cells  that  are  but  slowly 
repaired,  and,  under  stress  of  severe  and  pro- 
[73J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

longed  emotion,  the  brain  is  permanently  in- 
jured. These  notes  have  been  vastly  il- 
luminating to  me  in  regard  to  the  dreadful 
war  which  now  rages,  and  I  think  we  may  well 
pause  to  consider  how  difficult  the  recovery 
will  be  after  it  is  over,  when  so  many  minds 
that  are  crippled  by  passion  must  attempt 
the  work  that  calls  for  entire  men. 

The  Man  of  Wrath  with  a  great  lust  to  kill 
ceases  to  inspire  us.  We  know  that  he  is  of 
value  in  hand-to-hand  combats,  but  he  is  a 
nuisance,  and  even  worse,  in  a  fight  where  cool 
heads  and  steady  hands  are  needed  for  ma- 
chine-guns. He  is  potential  in  instigating  war, 
but  he  is  incompetent  to  end  it.  He  is  a  drum- 
major  of  anarchy. 

We  also  learn  that  the  emotional  hurrah  of 
the  man  in  high  authority  is  evidence  that  he 
is  unfit  for  his  job,  because  under  emotion  his 
qualities  of  judgment  are  paralyzed  and  his 
sense  of  co-ordination  is  atrophied. 

While  confining  ourselves  to  the  mechanistic 
point  of  view  we  may  describe  judgment  as  the 
operation  of  selecting  the  best  thing  available 
to  do  at  the  time — just  as  the  tree  reaches  out 
toward  the  light — and  we  may  regard  it  as 
mechanical.  As  in  a  Jacquard  loom  the  woof 
is  run  through  those  openings  that  are  before 
it,  so  the  judgment,  the  determining  bobbin,  as 
[74J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

we  might  call  it,  passes  through  those  channels 
of  the  mind  that  are  open  to  it,  and  determines 
the  act  which  we  mechanically  perform. 

We  may  regard  impulse  as  something  dif- 
ferent from  reason  if  we  want  to,  but  to  me 
the  difference  seems  to  be  in  name  rather  than 
in  fact.  If  judgment  is  automatic  it  may 
operate  so  rapidly  that  it  skips  consciousness, 
but  that  is  no  ground  for  calling  it  a  thing 
apart.  Under  impulse  we  act  rapidly,  so  that 
consciousness  is  often  skipped  in  the  process, 
and  usually  there  is  an  emotional  drive  to  it. 
An  impulse  seems  to  me  to  be  a  quick,  emo- 
tional leading  or  drive  to  an  act,  and  as  much 
of  an  automatic  response  to  stimulus  as  to  eat 
when  we  are  hungry  or  to  drink  when  we  are 
thirsty.  In  doing  many  things  we  skip  con- 
sciousness after  we  are  used  to  doing  them, 
although  at  first,  when  we  are  learning  how, 
they  involve  great  effort. 

There  are  also  automatic  vanities  which  we 
have  discussed  elsewhere,  of  which  a  notable 
example  is  our  disposition  to  justify  ourselves, 
any  time  and  all  the  time.  We  are  apt  to 
think  that  we  thought,  when  we  were  acting 
so  rapidly  that  the  act  skipped  consciousness. 
And  in  explaining  afterward,  our  sense  of 
veracity  is  under  the  greatest  strain.  We  fool 
ourselves  into  the  belief  that  we  deliberated 
[75] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

over  every  possibility,  when  in  fact  we  were 
following  blindly  the  drive  within  us  to  do 
that  which  was  the  only  possible  thing  that 
we  could  do  under  existing  conditions. 

Ill 

The  Blue  Tree 

Free  will  is  a  long  way  from  our  acts,  yet 
we  have  a  constructive  faculty.  Although 
often  within  a  very  narrow  range,  we  have  the 
ordering  of  our  lives  in  our  hands.  This  con- 
structive faculty  is  in  use  when  we  are  con- 
juring up  our  ideals.  We  can  of  our  own 
volition  say,  "I  will  plan  my  life  to  do  this 
thing."  We  can  of  our  own  will  select  a  picture 
in  our  minds  and  hold  it  in  our  consciousness 
as  a  stimulus.  More  likely  than  not  we  get  the 
idea  from  some  one  else;  but  such  ideas,  as 
they  are  given  to  us,  become  our  property,  to 
do  with  as  we  will,  to  adopt  as  ideals  or  to 
reject.  Many  things  influence  us  in  this;  we 
are  not  as  free  as  we  think  we  are;  we  generate 
our  own  energy,  and  some  of  us  are  equipped 
with  very  low-power  dynamos;  but  the  process 
of  selecting  those  purposes  and  ways  of  life 
which  we  project  into  our  consciousness  by  our 
own  will  is  the  occasion  of  our  greatest  freedom. 
[76] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

As  we  grow  older  we  become  either  more  firm 
of  purpose  or  more  obedient  to  any  stimulus; 
what  we  have  made  of  our  lives  becomes  more 
fixed;  but  at  no  time  are  we  complete.  We 
may  change  our  whole  nature  at  fifty  as  well 
as  at  thirty  or  fifteen — but  we  are  less  likely  to. 
This  business  of  combining  impressions  and 
setting  them  up  as  ideals  is  the  substance  of 
our  free  will.  We  may  fall  short  of  our  ideals, 
we  may  be  entirely  different  from  what  we 
meant  to  be,  and  yet  be  following  them  as 
nearly  as  we  can.  The  question  of  respon- 
sibility is:  With  what  earnestness  do  we  select 
our  ideals,  and  with  what  effort  do  we  project 
them  into  our  consciousness? 

The  difference  between  achieving  an  ideal 
and  performing  an  act  is  rather  hazy,  I'll  admit; 
but  I  imagine  the  one  to  be  the  little  push  we 
give  of  our  own  desire  and  choice  when  a 
picture  comes  into  consciousness  that  we  want 
to  have  represent  us.  "That  is  mine!"  we 
say,  and  we  proceed  to  conform  to  the  picture, 
to  drive  it  into  consciousness,  to  recall  it,  to 
urge  it  upon  ourselves  until  in  the  end  we  act 
that  way,  and  this  because  we  want  to.  The 
picture  is  the  stimulus,  but  the  process  of 
selection  seems  supermechanical.  Although  I 
cannot  imagine  how  we  can  think  without  our 
thinking-machines,  it  seems  that  somewhere  in 
[77] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

the  process  freedom  has  entered  in  and  we  thus 
become,  let  us  say,  the  navigating  officers  of  our 
lives.  On  the  other  hand,  the  direct  perform- 
ance of  an  act  seems  an  automatic  response  to 
the  strongest  stimulus  in  the  mind  at  the  time. 

This  may  seem  like  arguing  in  a  circle,  be- 
cause the  mechanism  that  we  employ  when 
we  are  selecting  our  ideals  is  substantially  the 
same  as  that  which  we  use  when  we  perform 
an  act.  But  the  stimulus  comes  from  within. 
Responsibility  is  a  quality  that  we  recognize, 
and  to  consider  it  a  fiction  seems  premature — 
as  though  we  had  not  yet  a  clear  vision  of  the 
truth  of  the  matter. 

In  the  late  Christian  Herter  s  remarkable 
and,  in  many  respects,  illuminating  book  called 
Biologic  Aspects  of  Human  Problems  he  de- 
velops consciousness  as  an  "awareness  of  self" 
that  arises  in  a  certain  complexity  of  organism 
under  certain  conditions.  This  awareness  of 
self  becomes  more  abundant  as  what  we  might 
call  the  harmonious  complexity  of  the  or- 
ganism increases.  Now,  responsibility,  or  the 
capacity  to  choose  of  our  own  accord,  like 
consciousness,  is  a  quality  that  seems  to  be 
present  in  us.  It  would  be  futile  to  deny  con- 
sciousness because  we  do  not  understand  just 
how  and  where  it  begins.  And  it  seems  equally 
idle  to  deny  responsibility.  It  seems  to  me  to 
[78] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

be  a  late  accompaniment  of  this  awareness  of 
self  which  we  know  we  have,  and  to  my  way 
of  thinking  it  functions  when  we  order  our 
lives. 

So  we  may  conceive  these  two  statements 
as  being  parts  of  the  truth — that  whatever  any 
one  does,  it  seems  the  best  that  he  can  do  at  the 
time,  and  also  that  whatever  any  one  does  is 
qualified  by  the  manner  in  which  he  has  or- 
dered his  life.  This  idealizing  ego,  then,  is  as 
much  a  part  of  ourselves  as  are  our  fingers  and 
toes.  It  is  also  selective.  Now,  if  it  appears 
that  we  have  no  free  will  when  we  commit  an 
act,  but  have  free  will  when  we  order  our  lives, 
we  surely  have  not  the  whole  truth  in  hand, 
but  the  theory  may  lead  us  nearer  to  it. 

IV 

The  God  in  th&  Machine 

Here  I  respectfully  ask  your  pardon.  De- 
spite my  protestations  I  have  already  burdened 
you  with  a  definition  of  the  truth  that  is  not 
in  the  dictionaries,  and  now  I  am  about  to  ask 
you  to  consider  religion  from  a  point  of  view 
that  does  not  seem  to  be  current.  I  admit 
frankly  that  it  is  not  only  distressing  to  the 
reader,  but  also  that  it  makes  for  confusion,  to 
[791 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

frame  new  definitions  for  old  words  as  one  pro- 
ceeds; but,  "Gott  hilf  mir;  ich  kann  nicM 
anders!" 

It  seems  to  me  that,  so  far  as  our  civilization 
is  concerned,  the  concept  of  religion  per  se  is 
modern.  There  is  no  Germanic  word  for  it; 
in  English,  German,  Dutch,  and  Scandinavian, 
the  Latin  word  has  been  imported  and  sub- 
stituted for  faith,  belief,  and  even  for  dogma 
and  theology.  In  the  sense  in  which  I  want  to 
use  the  word  there  is  no  plural.  Christianity, 
Buddhism,  Brahminism,  Judaism,  Moham- 
medanism are  not  so  many  religions  (although 
I  must  admit  that  the  Latins,  who  gave  us  the 
word,  would  have  used  it  in  this  sense);  they 
are,  let  us  say,  faiths  or  beliefs  or  confessions. 
At  all  events,  if  we  agree  to  call  them  such,  it 
will  leave  us  free  to  use  the  word  religion  with- 
out thinking  of  the  minister,  the  Sunday- 
school,  or  the  choir  in  which  we  used  to  sing. 
Of  course,  the  minister  and  the  Sunday-school 
and  the  church  choir  may  have  functioned  as 
parts  of  religion,  but  to  think  of  them  as  the 
substance  of  it  might  get  them  out  of  their 
right  relation  to  the  idea  which  I  am  trying  to 
express. 

In  the  chapter  called  "The  Blue  Tree"  we 
considered  how  we  may,  of  our  own  free  will, 
select  impressions  or  ideas,  and  by  making 
[80] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

ideals  of  them  drive  them  into  consciousness 
so  that  they  shall  serve  as  both  stimuli  and 
inhibitions  to  our  actions.  We  called  this  the 
ordering  of  life.  In  the  process  we  are  open  to 
impressions,  although  we  determine  within 
ourselves,  subject,  of  course,  to  our  limitations, 
which  of  these  impressions  we  shall  select. 
Now,  the  function  of  providing  ideals  and  offer- 
ing them  and  teaching  them,  so  that  we  may 
order  our  lives  aright  and  thus  approach  the 
truth,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  great  province  of 
religion.  We  may  practise  religion  either  with 
or  without  dogma.  The  man  of  faith  may 
have  great  religious  value,  and  again  he  may 
have  no  religious  value  at  all.  There  are,  for 
example,  religious  Christians,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Christians  of  great  piety  who  are 
not  religious.  The  anchorite  who  whips  and 
distresses  himself  to  save  his  own  soul  is  not 
practising  religion;  he  is  exercising  his  faith. 
The  Samaritan  who  picks  up  the  fallen  wan- 
derer by  the  wayside  and  by  his  act  also  en- 
larges the  vision  of  the  man  he  helps,  so  that 
the  stimulus  of  sympathy  enters  into  him,  is 
doing  a  religious  act.  Faith  may  be  a  stimulus 
to  religious  acts,  and  we  know  that  it  often  is; 
but  since  often  it  is  not,  we  may  as  well  address 
ourselves  to  that  aspect  of  religion  which  we 
can  understand,  regarding  it  as  having  to  do 
[81] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

with  the  ordering  of  our  lives,  and  not  as  re- 
lated to  dogma  or  faith  save  as  dogma  or 
faith  may  induce  it.  Then  we  find  that  every- 
body has  the  religious  equipment,  just  as  he 
has  a  sympathetic  equipment,  although  both 
may  be  greatly  atrophied.  With  this  in  mind, 
although  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  a  con- 
flict between  science  and  the  Bible  and  science 
and  dogma,  there  is  no  conflict  between  science 
and  religion. 

This  view  of  religion  takes  the  subject  out  of 
the  domain  of  metaphysics  and  mysteries  and 
recognizes  it  as  a  specific  department  of  human 
life.  By  it  we  reach  the  conclusion  that  it  is  a 
necessary  function,  in  which  we  are  all  in- 
terested. The  truly  religious  man  is  he  who 
helps  you  and  me  to  be  of  positive  value  to  the 
world  in  which  we  live  and,  in  one  way  or 
another,  to  approach  the  truth.  Whether  he 
be  a  Christian  or  a  Jew  or  anything  else  is  his 
affair — his  faith,  his  profession.  His  religion 
is  in  his  ideals  and  his  use  of  them. 

We  must  have  ideals.  We  can  do  nothing 
without  them.  And  this  essay  is  written  in  the 
sincere  belief  that  as  we  approach  the  truth 
with  understanding,  one  human  problem  after 
another  will  be  solved.  Only,  we  must  order 
our  lives  aright  or  else  we  cannot  approach  the 
truth.  We  cannot,  otherwise,  get  the  facts 
182] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

into  focus.  So  all  the  world  needs  religion — 
to-day,  it  would  seem,  more  than  ever  before. 
Dogmas  that  we  cannot  believe  will  not  an- 
swer the  purpose.  Apologetics  often  offend 
more  than  they  aid.  Religion  is  bigger  than 
any  church  or  any  creed  or  any  faith,  and  its 
business  is  the  development  of  a  wiser  and  a 
better  humanity. 


Into  the  Unknown 

We  have  discussed  the  problem  of  free  will 
and  found  it  not  very  free,  and  yet  I  have 
tried  to  develop  the  idea  that  we  have  the 
ordering  of  our  lives  in  our  own  hands.  Now 
let  us  adventure  farther,  and  this  time  into  the 
unknown,  with  analogy  as  our  guide. 

We  have  seen  how  facts  are  parts  of  the 
truth  and  that  we  reap  confusion  if  we  consider 
them  as  substitutes  for  it.  We  might  postulate 
a  law  of  arrangement,  a  law  of  order,  that  holds 
good  in  regard  to  the  truth  and  applies  also 
to  animate  and  inanimate  things.  We  see  this 
ordering  of  the  composite  parts  into  their  right 
relation  in  the  formation  of  a  crystal.  We  need 
not  question  now  why  the  molecules  join  ac- 
cording to  a  mathematical  scale  to  form  a 
•symmetrical  body;  suffice  it  for  the  present  to 
[83] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

observe  that  they  do.  The  molecules  are  in- 
dividual, but  they  group  themselves  into  some- 
thing that  is  not  a  molecule — into  a  crystal. 
We  may  compare  a  crystal  to  the  truth,  and 
the  molecules  to  the  facts  which  constitute  it. 
Until  the  molecules  are  in  their  right  order 
there  is  no  crystal.  Until  the  facts  are  in  their 
right  order  there  is  no  truth. 

We,  as  men  and  women,  are  composed  of 
innumerable  particles  of  many  different  kinds. 
Their  good  condition  and  orderly  arrangement 
are  necessary  to  our  being.  Let  us  consider, 
for  example,  our  white  blood  corpuscles  or 
leucocytes.  They  work  with  what  almost  ap- 
pears to  be  intelligence  in  overcoming  disease. 
They  are  not  simple  little  things  by  any 
means;  they  are  marvelously  complex.  They 
respond  to  a  stimulus  and  go  to  work,  just  as 
we  do.  Sometimes  they  are  weak,  inefficient, 
and  sick;  and  then  we  languish  or  die  because 
they  do  not  do  their  work.  They  are  me- 
chanical entities,  and  are  subject  to  physical 
and  chemical  laws. 

Now  we  are  mechanical  entities  and  we  con- 
stitute something  greater  than  ourselves.  We 
group  ourselves  artificially  into  nations  which 
a  congress  has  power  to  change  by  moving  a 
boundary  line  from  one  side  of  us  to  the  other. 
We  divide  humanity  into  other  groups,  as  into 
[84] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

families,  because  of  immediate  consanguinity, 
and  into  races,  based  on  what  appears  to  be  a 
remoter  consanguinity.  We  divide  ourselves 
again  into  long-headed  and  broad -headed 
classes.  The  facts  upon  which  these  groupings 
are  based  do  not  accord  with  one  another,  nor 
do  they  tell  us  much  about  what  humanity 
means.  They  are  desirable  facts  and,  in  a  way, 
it  is  worth  knowing  that  some  of  us  are  of  one 
nation  and  some  of  another;  some  long-headed 
and  some  broad;  some  one  thing  and  others 
something  else ;  but  a  new  and  greater  meaning 
might  be  applied  to  us  by  a  master  mind,  the 
greater  anthropologist  who  could  explain  the 
human  family  as  it  has  not  been  explained 
before. 

The  news  of  battles  does  not  tell  us  what  is 
really  happening  to  us  all;  and  there  are  prob- 
lems ahead  even  graver  and  more  important 
than  who  shall  win.  Is  not  victory  itself  a 
curse  to  the  winner  who  lacks  the  character 
to  meet  his  obligations?  Some  day,  let  us 
hope,  a  wiser  generation  will  follow  that  will 
refuse  to  accept  the  wrath  and  hate  that  we 
cherish,  and  will  work  diligently  to  repair  the 
havoc  of  this  war.  Then  perhaps  the  greater 
anthropologist  will  come. 

Collective  humanity  is,  indeed,  a  strange 
phenomenon.  Constantly  destroying  itself,  it 
7  [85] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

is  at  war  with  half  of  nature  and  cultivates  as 
richly  as  it  can  the  other  half.  It  has  a 
marvelous  faculty  for  helping  itself,  and  then, 
when  a  part  of  it  has  achieved  a  high  order  of 
living  and  gathered  in  those  things  of  the  earth 
which  it  desires,  there  is  usually  a  great  fall, 
and  as  the  years  roll  on,  the  dull,  stupid  toiler 
guides  his  plow  over  the  land  that  once  was 
Carthage  and  Nineveh.  What  is  it  that  makes 
collective  humanity  sick?  What  was  the 
disease  of  Babylon  and  of  the  forgotten  city 
that  underlies  it?  After  all  the  analyses,  what 
was  the  sickness  of  Rome?  Why  did  Europe 
go  to  sleep  for  a  thousand  years,  and  what 
was  it  that  killed  the  intellect  of  the  Saracens? 
Why  did  Persia  die? 

Collective  humanity  is  a  thing,  a  being  that 
grows  well  and  is  strong  and  becomes  godlike, 
and  then  again  sickens  and  becomes  foolish, 
and  the  spirit  of  it  fades  away  until  slavery 
under  a  benign  master  would  be  an  advantage. 
Collective  humanity  as  we  see  it  is  a  great 
jumble  of  parts,  related,  unrelated,  and  in  dire 
confusion.  What  is  it  doing?  Not  one  of  us 
can  tell. 

Now  let  us  imagine  leucocytes  to  have  con- 
sciousness and  vision,  and  let  us  consider  a 
single  one  of  them.  Its  abode  is  in  the  blood 
of  somebody — of  you,  let  us  say;  and  its  life 
[86] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

is  very  exciting  for  it  because  it  never  knows 
what  its  path  will  be.  Sometimes  it  is  driven 
into  one  of  your  fingers,  again  into  one  of  your 
toes;  it  may  be  busy  on  a  little  scratch  well 
covered  up,  or  it  may  suddenly  have  to  do 
battle  with  a  tetanus  bacillus.  Ask  a  leu- 
cocyte what  it  knows  of  life,  and  it  might 
well  answer  that  it  is  a  continuous  problem; 
it  would  tell  you  all  sorts  of  interesting  things 
about  your  interior — which  is  its  whole  world — 
but  it  could  not  tell  anything  about  you. 
Even  so  simple  a  detail  as  that,  for  instance, 
you  do  not  like  parsnips,  could  not  occur  to 
this  leucocyte,  because  you  do  not  eat  them, 
and  so  it  has  no  experience  with  parsnips. 
Really,  the  leucocytes  with  consciousness, 
which  I  am  imagining,  are  very  like  us;  they 
are  in  their  world  and  we  in  ours.  And  we 
may  be  very  like  them — parts  of  a  Great  In- 
telligence as  much  beyond  us  as  we  are  beyond 
the  leucocytes  which  form  parts  of  us. 

Humanity  has  always  been  speculating  about 
this  Greater  Intelligence,  and  yet  speculation 
has  always  been  discouraged  on  the  ground 
that  the  matter  is  all  settled.  This  conserva- 
tism is  what  gives  us  such  amazing  dicta  as 
the  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism  and  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles.  The  usual  human  con- 
cept of  the  Greater  Intelligence  is  as  of  one 
[87] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

apart  from  us  and  appearing  in  all  manifesta- 
tions of  power.  It  has  been  proposed  that 
we»  may  come  into  sight  and  communication 
with  it  after  death;  and  the  fear  of  it,  de- 
scribed as  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  has  also 
been  used  to  make  us  do  strange  things  in 
accordance  with  traditions  and  myths  older 
than  history. 

Even  analogy  will  only  help  us  occasionally 
here,  and  otherwise  we  have  nothing  to  guide 
us  in  these  vaster  regions  but  the  imagination. 
And  yet,  if  we  can  imagine  some  relation  be- 
tween human  beings  and  a  possible  Greater 
Intelligence,  a  relation  which  does  not  seem 
false  or  impossible,  we  may  be  taking  steps  in 
advance.  If  we  imagine  this  and  imagine  that 
and  then  something  else,  it  may  be  that  some 
day  somebody  will  imagine  a  working  hypothe- 
sis which  does  not  seem  to  offend  against  the 
truth. 

Now  suppose  the  working  hypothesis  should 
involve  the  conception  of  human  beings  as 
minute  particles  of  the  Greater  Intelligence, 
citing  the  analogy  of  the  leucocytes  or  any  other 
swarm  of  microscopic  units.  We  need  not 
then  restrict  ourselves  to  their  reactions  in  the 
human  body.  We  are  different,  are  differ- 
ently constructed,  and  this  remarkable  quality 
of  consciousness  is,  at  all  events,  far  greater 
188] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

in  the  human  being  than  it  is,  for  instance,  in  a 
leucocyte.  Without  doubt  it  reaches  farther. 
Nor  need  we  restrict  the  Greater  Intelligence 
to  our  own  limitations.  We  are  not  conscious 
of  our  blood  corpuscles,  but  that  is  no  reason 
why  the  Greater  Intelligence  may  not  be  con- 
scious of  us.  We  know,  as  we  have  said,  that 
if  our  white  blood  corpuscles  are  weak,  in- 
efficient, or  sick,  we  languish,  and  that  our 
welfare  requires  that  they  be  in  health.  So, 
if  we  consider  collective  humanity  and  observe 
that  it  advances  in  knowledge,  in  understand- 
ing, in  order,  and  in  righteousness,  we  may 
then  feel  that  it  is  well  with  the  Greater  In- 
telligence of  which  we  are  a  part.  But  if  we 
live  in  idleness  and  waste  and  hatred  and 
cruelty  and  malice,  and  cause  misery  and 
degradation,  it  would  seem  that  we  are  of- 
fending and  injuring  the  Greater  Intelligence, 
the  God  of  all  of  us.  This  makes  the  Greater 
Intelligence  in  a  way  dependent  upon  us,  so 
that  it  loses  health  and  welfare  and  power 
when  we  undermine  the  health  and  welfare 
of  one  another. 

Sometime  when  we  know  more  than  we  do 
now,  there  may  be  available  a  working  hy- 
pothesis along  these  lines  and  in  accord  with 
familiar  facts.  It  is  interesting  to  speculate 
upon  what  the  results  may  be.  Hebrew  poetry 
[89] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

has  given  us  a  tradition  and  a  conception  of  a 
deity  apart  from  ourselves  and  pregnant  with 
the  greatest  conceivable  measure  of  power. 
The  Christian,  Jewish,  and  Mohammedan  peo- 
ples worship  an  Almighty  Divinity  that  rules 
the  stars  and  the  uttermost  heavens,  the 
nebulae  as  well  as  the  sun  and  its  planets,  in- 
cluding the  earth.  The  thought  of  any  other 
is  condemned.  Beginning  with  a  tribal  master 
of  its  fate  inspired  by  selfishness,  lust,  and 
wrath,  humanity  has  magnified  its  conception 
of  its  god  until  it  has  exalted  him  beyond  the 
earth  and  projected  him  through  the  ether  into 
a  miUion  other  worlds.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  be  guided  back  again  to  a  God  of  all  men 
and  women,  exercising  vast  powers  of  the  spirit 
when  in  health  and  when  His  component 
particles  are  doing  their  work  as  they  should, 
but  losing  power  to  lead  or  guide  if  mankind  is 
wayward  and  corrupt. 


PRECISION'S    ENGLISH 


C^GUAGE  is  a  vehicle  of  intellectual 
traffic;  its  business  is  to  carry  ideas, 
mental  concepts,  information,  and  at 
times  the  truth.  It  is  a  clumsy  wagon,  inade- 
quate to  its  purpose;  indeed,  all  of  the  arts 
are  required  to  accomplish  that  purpose.  Some 
ideas  are  best  expressed  in  prose,  others  in 
verse;  some  by  mechanical  drawing,  others 
again  in  paint;  some  in  marble  and  others  in 
bronze;  and  many  find  their  only  means  of 
expression  in  music.  Sometimes  a  glance  of 
the  eye  tells  the  story,  and  at  other  times  a 
gesture  is  enough.  Sometimes  it  would  seem 
that  nearly  all  the  arts  are  needed  at  once. 
The  tale  is  told  of  a  couple  of  partially  Amer- 
icanized old  men  of  the  florid  East  who  met 
unexpectedly.  The  first  cried  out  his  happy 
greetings  and  straightway  grasped  his  friend 
in  a  close  embrace.  The  second  was  smitten 
with  sudden  aphasia;  he  grew  red  in  the  face, 
his  features  became  contorted,  and  finally, 
with  a  mighty  effort,  he  brought  himself  to 
[911 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

say,  "  Leggo-ma-hands-ai-vanta-talk !"  Lan- 
guage alone  was  inadequate;  he  needed 
gestures. 

There  is  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  the  asser- 
tion that  we  do  not  study  our  language  enough. 
Without  an  intimate  sense  of  it  we  are  nearly 
helpless.  True,  some  of  us  seem  to  achieve  an 
understanding  of  the  anatomy  of  sentences 
almost  intuitively,  while  others,  despite  intense 
study,  are  unable  to  bring  grace  and  action 
into  their  speech.  But  no  one,  with  a  love  of 
literature  in  his  heart  or  a  desire  to  read  or  to 
hear  things  said,  will  deny  the  value  of  study 
of  language  to  those  who  must  use  it. 

A  point  that  is  occasionally  debated  has  to 
do  with  the  primary  requirement  of  language 
— whether  it  shall  carry  ideas  with  the  greatest 
precision  or  whether  the  greatest  effort  should 
be  directed  toward  making  the  vehicle  which 
carries  the  idea  a  thing  of  faultless  construc- 
tion. There  is  a  wide  difference  here — the 
difference  between  the  wagon  and  its  load; 
and  we  are  often  called  upon  to  decide  between 
the  two.  So  precision  in  the  one  must  often 
give  way  to  precision  in  the  other. 

The  purpose  of  language  is  fulfilled  when 

an  idea  is  carried  from  the  mind  of  the  speaker 

or  the  writer  to  the  receiving  mind.     Now, 

unless  language  is  used  aright,  it  foments  dis- 

[92] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

cord  and  often  proves  the  greater  wisdom  of 
silence — when  the  speaker  knows  that  if  he 
but  had  the  art,  the  right  thing  said  would 
indeed  be  golden  words.  The  lack  of  the  art  of 
speech  is  the  inability  to  say  the  precise  thing. 
Therefore,  without  a  thorough  equipment  in 
language,  the  speaker  is  as  likely  to  fail  in 
saying  what  he  means  as  he  is  to  fail  in  con- 
structing his  speech  on  academic  lines. 

If  the  rule  of  precision  in  construction  stands 
in  the  way  of  efficient  expression,  it  should  be 
made  secondary  to  it.  Beethoven  broke  the 
rules  of  composition  and  accomplished  won- 
ders. To-day  he  is  a  classic,  but  in  his  own 
day  he  was  a  dreadful  radical.  So,  too, 
painting  would  be  an  inefficient  art  now, 
had  the  best  usage  and  the  rules  current  at 
the  time  been  followed  by  the  masters  of  the 
brush. 

In  English  speech  the  words  that  sin  most 
against  clear  expression  are  adverbs.  Thus 
under  stress  of  dire  need  you  may  say,  "Come 
here  quick!"  or,  "Come  here,  quickly!"  The 
former  is  theoretically  incorrect,  but  it  carries 
the  idea.  The  latter  is  theoretically  correct, 
but  it  lacks  force.  Adverbs  are  poor  things 
compared  with  adjectives.  Indeed,  if  an  anti- 
adverb  society  should  ever  be  organized,  I 
desire  to  record  here  and  now  an  application 
[93J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

for  membership.     It  might  worry  us  a  little 
to  read: 

Take  her  up  tender, 

Lift  her  with  care! 
Fashioned  so  slender, 

Young  and  so  fair! 

but  that  is  only  because  we  are  accustomed  to 
the  adverbs.  The  meaning  is  all  there  without 
the  adverb  forms.  I  pick  up  a  book  from  my 
library  table  by  an  author  of  merit  and  read 
' '  refreshingly, "  "  flamingly, "  ' '  purringly , ' ' 
"noisily,"  besides  many  others  of  less  offense 
in  half  a  score  of  pages.  What  sickly,  puling 
words  they  are!  Henry  James  used  adverbs 
of  his  own  make  in  even  greater  abundance, 
and  he  seems  to  have  needed  them,  just  as  the 
old  gentleman  from  the  florid  East  needed  his 
hands  for  gesticulation.  But  we  shall  do  well 
to  grant  to  Mr.  James  all  the  adverbial  privi- 
leges he  took;  he  managed  to  conceive  ideas, 
and  through  the  medium  of  written  language 
to  get  them  over  into  the  understanding  of 
many  of  us  who  take  great  delight  in  them.  I 
do  not  like  his  adverbs,  and  I  often  wish  that 
he  had  adjusted  his  ideas  with  wings  that 
fluttered  less — but  that  was  his  business;  and 
his  desire  for  truth  in  his  art  doubtless  led 
him  to  cover  all  the  ground — and  the  waters 
[941 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

under  the  earth  as  well.  The  anti-adverb 
society  would  never  prohibit  adverbs  if  it 
expected  to  live;  it  would  only  discourage 
them.  The  Germans  managed  to  achieve  a 
meritorious  precision  of  speech,  and  they  have 
no  adverbs  in  the  sense  that  these  differ  from 
adjectives.  So  if  the  expression  "Come  quick" 
means  more  than  "Come  quickly,"  the  chances 
are  that  in  time  we  shall  receive  grammatical 
warrant  to  use  the  words  that  carry  the  idea 
with  the  greatest  efficiency. 

The  English  language  leads  a  dissolute  life 
and  welcomes  any  word  that  comes  its  way. 
There  have  always  been  bars  sinister  on  its 
arms,  but  this  has  never  seemed  to  worry  it. 
In  the  Far  East  there  are  hundreds  of  Asiatic 
words  in  current  use  in  English  and  they  are 
gradually  creeping  into  the  dictionaries.  This 
catholicity — to  use  a  more  gentle  expression — 
is  its  very  strength.  The  danger  may  lie  in  a 
splitting  up  of  the  language  into  different  dia- 
lects, and  it  is  the  business  of  scholarship  to 
use  every  effort  to  avoid  this.  But  in  doing 
so  it  must  be  prepared  to  make  compromises 
and  to  welcome  expressions  which  our  grand- 
fathers would  have  rejected.  Do  what  we 
please — teach,  instruct,  threaten,  cajole,  or 
plead — nine  out  of  ten  boys  will  answer,  "It's 
me!"  to  the  question,  "Who's  there?"  There 
[95] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

must  be  a  reason  for  this.  The  French,  who 
are  supposed  to  pay  some  attention  to  their 
language,  use  the  same  form,  and  it  has  received 
scholastic  approval.  "Me"  seems,  somehow, 
more  intimate  and  is  stronger  than  "I"; 
which  may  be  the  reason  why  the  child  will 
say,  "Me  go  to  mother,"  and  not  "Give  it  to  I." 

Scholarship  has  changed  in  the  last  fifty 
years.  Science  has  taught  us  different  methods 
of  thought  from  those  of  our  grandfathers. 
We  have  innumerable  new  facts  to  co-ordinate, 
and  so  language  is  beset  with  many  new  diffi- 
culties. It  is  not  a  question  of  haste,  that 
persistent  and  pestilent  excuse  of  the  ignorant, 
that  beclouds  expression  in  current  speech. 
It  is  usually  a  question  of  the  scholarship  and 
intelligence  of  the  speaker.  Whatever  words 
will  best  carry  an  idea — get  it  over,  so  that  the 
receiving  mind  comprehends  it — are  doing 
their  real  work. 

When  the  time  comes  that  we  have  used  up 
our  resources,  and  in  the  swing  of  the  awful 
pendulum  old  age  is  upon  the  land  and  the  peo- 
ple and  this  our  day  is  become  a  golden  age; 
when  scholarship  looks  backward  again  and 
inspiration  is  wholly  sought  in  the  forgotten 
night,  savants  will  probably  revert  to  the  ways 
of  the  medieval  Latinists.  But  now,  to-day, 
when  things  are  in  the  making  and  in  the 
[96J 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

doing,  the  work  of  a  teacher  of  a  living  lan- 
guage is  that  of  an  engineer  of  traffic.  He 
must  do  all  he  can  to  keep  the  vehicle  in  order 
and  in  condition  to  carry  the  greatest  loads  of 
thought.  The  vehicle  will  not  break  down; 
the  loads  of  thought  may. 


HINDSIGHT 

SUPPOSE  those  having  the  administration 
of  affairs  in  Germany  had  thought  more 
of  future  generations  than  of  immediate 
glory  and  prowess  and  might,  and  suppose  they 
had  been  of  disposition  to  look  at  things  from 
a  philosophical  standpoint,  with  minds  open 
to  the  truth,  they  might,  until  July,   1914, 
have  reasoned  in  this  wise: 

The  great  need  of  Germany  was  more  ter- 
ritory. Its  population  was  very  dense,  its 
people  industrious,  and  it  needed  a  larger  field 
for  development.  While  it  managed  its  own 
affairs  with  distinct  ability  it  had  not  been 
successful  in  ruling  foreigners.  For  forty- 
three  years  it  had  administered  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, but  it  did  not  establish  contentment 
among  its  people.  On  its  eastern  border  the 
Poles  under  its  rule  were  not  satisfied,  despite 
the  best  German  methods  of  government  that 
were  applied  to  them,  and  a  similar  discontent 
and  unrest  prevailed  among  the  Danes  in  the 
north  of  Schleswig-Holstein.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  German  people  were  peaceful  and 
[98] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

law-abiding;  except  for  the  heavy  burden  of 
military  duties,  they  were  as  well  content  as 
any  others  and  it  would  appear  that  as  far  as 
the  Germans  themselves  were  concerned,  their 
methods  of  domestic  government  and  rule  were 
sound.  In  other  words,  they  might  have  said, 
"We  Germans  are  good  housekeepers  at  home, 
but  are  less  successful  abroad.  Additional  proof 
of  this  is  the  constant  trouble  that  neighbor 
Austria  has  in  governing  Slavs  and  Italians. 
They  are  never  out  of  difficulties  over  there. 
So  instead  of  trying  to  convert  foreigners  into 
Germans  by  force,  let's  let  foreigners  worry 
out  their  own  salvation — and  raise  more  Ger- 
mans. If  foreigners  want  to  immigrate  and 
become  Germans,  they  shall  be  welcome,  but 
instead  of  conquering  them  against  their  will — 
in  which  event  they  do  not  seem  to  develop 
into  German  patriots — we  shall  accept  them 
only  when  they  want  to  come." 

This  is  not  a  royal  idea  nor  is  it  in  accord 
with  Prussian  traditions;  but  the  great  gifts 
of  the  German  people  to  the  world  in  former 
days  have  not  been  developed  under  royal  or 
imperial  decree,  nor  were  they  the  outcome  of 
Prussian  traditions. 

The  philosophical  ruler  of  Germany  and  his 
cabinet  whom  I  am  imagining  would  have 
observed  that  the  available  earth  was  largely 
[99] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

in  the  hands  of  strong  powers  and  that  the  cost 
of  gaining  by  the  sword  sparsely  settled  and 
fertile  land  near  by  was  too  severe  a  burden 
upon  future  generations  to  be  considered  until 
every  other  effort  had  failed.  War  kills  off 
the  best  human  breeding-stock,  no  matter 
which  side  wins.  So  the  proposal  to  trade 
would  naturally  present  itself.  The  Germans 
are  masters  at  trading.  In  looking  over  avail- 
able territory  near  by  they  could  not  fail  to  ob- 
serve that  the  northern  strip  of  Africa,  com- 
prising parts  of  Tunis,  Algiers,  and  Morocco, 
is  the  very  best  part  of  the  world  now  open  to 
settlement.  The  desirability  of  this  region 
has  long  been  in  German  minds,  as  we  have 
occasionally  been  reminded  by  the  incident 
at  Agadir  and  by  other  signs.  But  because 
the  Foreign  Office  of  the  Empire  has  been  in 
Berlin  rather  than  in  Cologne,  Darmstadt,  or 
Frankfurt,  the  only  method  considered  has 
been  force,  and  until  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
this  has  failed.  The  time  was  not  so  very 
long  ago  when  the  habit  of  mind  which  char- 
acterized the  west  of  the  German  Empire  was 
singularly  different  from  that  of  Berlin  and 
Potsdam. 

Now,  suppose  the  suggestion  had  been  made 
to  the  French  authorities,  with  no  ultimatum 
involved  and  with  no  reference  to  the  royal 
[100] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

and  imperial  grandfather  of  the  present  Kaiser 
or  to  anything  else  save  the  business  in  hand, 
that  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  despite  over  forty 
years  of  German  rule,  still  remained  largely 
French  in  sentiment,  and  that  it  had  been 
borne  in  upon  the  German  government  that  the 
French  people  were  evidently  desirous  of  ob- 
taining possession  of  them  again.  The  German 
government  might  have  added  that  it  believed 
that  if  these  provinces  were  to  come  under 
French  rule  again  this  might  occur  without 
abuse  to  the  people  living  there.  Germany's 
new  policy  being  German  rule  for  German  peo- 
ple, and  these  provinces  persevering  in  their 
French  sentiments,  they  might  well  have  been 
ceded  back  to  France  in  consideration  of  other 
territory  and  a  right  of  way  to  reach  it.  The 
land  for  which  these  provinces  might  have 
been  exchanged  is  that  to  which  we  have 
referred  on  the  border  of  the  Mediterranean 
in  northern  Africa,  now  under  French  rule. 
Its  extent  and  area  could  have  been  determined 
by  agreement.  This  was  at  one  time  the 
garden  spot  of  the  earth,  it  is  rich  in  minerals, 
and  Germany  had  enough  people  to  inhabit  it 
and  develop  it.  With  all  cause  of  war  between 
the  two  nations  removed,  the  means  of  reach- 
ing the  Mediterranean  from  Germany  should 
not  have  been  an  impossibility. 
8  [  101  ] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

My  impression  is  that  the  French  would  have 
accepted  such  a  proposal  from  the  Germans, 
would  have  been  generous  in  giving  up  a  large 
share  of  its  North  African  possessions,  and  that 
they  would  have  fallen  upon  the  Germans' 
necks  and  embraced  them,  instead  of  shooting 
them  as  necessity  has  required.  Germany  and 
France  would  have  been  a  pair  of  nations 
working  together  in  entire  amity.  There 
might  have  been  a  little  flurry  of  excitement 
elsewhere,  but  with  France  and  Germany 
united  in  friendship  and  the  slogan  of  German 
rule  for  German  people,  with  no  desire  to  con- 
trol foreigners,  in  full  effect,  the  sting  would 
have  been  taken  from  its  development.  So 
far  as  the  Arab  tribes  of  that  part  of  North 
Africa  were  concerned,  German  civilization 
would  not  have  been  acceptable  to  them  and 
they  would  have  had  to  move  away  in  time. 
It  would  have  been  a  little  trouble  instead  of 
the  greatest  trouble  in  history. 

The  plan  would  not  have  found  favor  with 
the  court  at  Vienna,  but  we  are  now  thinking 
less  of  dynasties  than  we  are  of  what  the  Ger- 
man people  might  have  been.  The  Austrian 
methods  of  imposing  German  rule  upon  Slavic 
peoples  would  not  have  found  favor  in  Germany, 
where  the  people,  minding  their  own  business, 
would  have  seen  no  Muscovite  menace.  It 
[102] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

would  not  have  been  the  first  time  that  Ger- 
many and  Austria  have  disagreed.  Indeed, 
in  course  of  time  the  German  part  of  Austria 
might  have  preferred  to  be  a  part  of  a  great, 
strong  German  empire  rather  than  to  persevere 
in  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to  turn  unwilling 
people  into  Germans. 

Then  there  would  have  been  no  war — no 
great  war.  In  eastern  Europe  the  Hungar- 
ians and  the  Slavs  might  be  blowing  bugles 
and  killing  one  another,  but  the  Germans 
would  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It 
would  have  been  local.  They  would  have  said : 
"It  is  their  affair;  let  them  rule  themselves. 
Our  work  is  to  raise  the  best  Germans  for  the 
future.  And  we  have  some  military  work  to 
do  in  North  Africa." 

Then  Germany  would  have  become  really 
great.  Other  nations  would  have  cut  down 
their  armament  as  she  cut  down  hers,  and  the 
Peace  of  Europe  would  have  prevailed.  Bel- 
gium would  not  have  been  violated,  and  all 
about  the  East,  both  far  and  near,  German 
merchants  and  German  ships  would  have  been 
welcome,  and  her  thousands  and  thousands  of 
young  men,  the  flower  of  her  youth,  now  rotting 
in  unmarked  graves,  with  grief  as  their  only 
legacy,  would  have  begotten  their  kind,  and  a 
new  and  great  race  of  people  would  have  arisen 
1103] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

to  enjoy  the  good-will  of  the  world.  Now  the 
cowards  and  the  inefficient  and  the  weak  will 
beget  the  next  generation — after  their  kind. 

All  this  might  have  been,  for  the  Germans 
are  very  amenable  to  suggestion  from  their 
rulers.  It  might  have  come  to  pass  if  under  the 
imperial  crown  there  had  been  as  much  philos- 
ophy and  welcome  to  the  truth  as  there  were 
dreams  of  prancing  horses  and  waving  plumes 
and  the  roar  of  battle. 


LIVING    CARICATURES 

Let  not  the  scornful  think  themselves  exempt: 
for  they,  in  truth  the  least  of  God's  blessings,  are  of 
all  men  and  women  the  most  absurd  and  the  most 
ridiculous. 

NEARLY  everybody  is  a  caricature  of  his 
own  ambitions.     Indeed,  he  is  of  a  poor 
sort  who  is  not.     So  long  as  one's  ideals 
are  beyond  him,  ahead  of  him,  rather  than  cast 
aside  or  forgotten,  he  is  sure  to  be  an  inade- 
quate representation  of  what  he  wants  to  be, 
uneven  and  distorted  in  one  way  or  another, 
and  hence  a  caricature. 

Let  us  go  to  some  place  where  people  for- 
gather— to  church  of  a  Sunday  morning,  for 
instance.  We  must  sit  so  that  we  may  watch 
the  people  as  they  enter.  Everybody  walks 
down  the  aisle  as  what  he  would  like  to  be — 
what  he  feels  in  his  heart  that  he  has  in  him 
to  be.  There's  Mr.  A.,  for  instance,  who  is 
bookkeeper  down  at  the  factory;  but  on  Sun- 
days he  is  free  of  his  task  and  there  you  behold 
him — the  Reasonable  Man  with  the  open  mind, 
prepared  to  give  valuable  deliberation  to  any 
[105] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

problem  that  may  be  presented.  Few  problems 
are  presented  to  him  except  in  the  balancing 
of  his  books;  and  his  wife  manages  his  family; 
so  that  he  has  but  slight  opportunity  to  exer- 
cise his  greatest  gift,  or  what  he  would  like  to 
have  as  his  greatest  gift — the  faculty  of  sound 
judgment.  His  walk,  his  gestures,  and  his  atti- 
tude all  show  it. 

His  wife  is  a  good  woman  and  efficient,  but 
not  very  interesting,  you  may  say.  That  is 
because  you  do  not  consider  her  with  her 
Sunday  hat  on,  or  watch  her  carefully.  In 
her  heart  she  is  a  great  lady,  fully  equipped 
for  grandeur;  and  if  you  look  deep  enough, 
you  cannot  fail  to  see  the  picture  of  the  Lady 
Marguerite  (her  husband  calls  her  Maggie) 
walking  down  the  gravel  path  of  the  palace 
garden,  with  two  pages  in  black  velvet  carrying 
her  train.  It's  all  there;  surely  you  can  see  it 
if  you  half  close  your  eyes  and  look  intently. 
She  has  something  of  the  grand  lady,  without 
any  doubt,  and  her  imagination  surely  plays 
about  the  idea.  Whether  it  is  a  visiting 
ancestor  who  suggests  it  to  her  spirit,  or  she 
really  is  well  equipped  for  the  part  now,  to-day, 
if  circumstances  permitted  it,  is  indeed  hard 
to  say.  I  rather  think  she  could  give  a  very 
respectable  welcome  to  prosperity — which  is 
more  than  may  be  said  of  most  people. 
[1061 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

If  it  is  in  a  country  church,  and  you  see  a 
young  man  who  evidently  has  not  the  gift  of 
orthodoxy,  a  none-too-willing  worker  in  the 
vineyard,  and  yet  for  whom  a  vine  has  been 
found — in  short,  the  dashing  "libarian"  of  the 
Sunday-school — you  know  at  a  glance  that 
it  is  the  girl  in  the  red  hat  who  keeps  him  at 
his  job.  He  would  rather  catch  one  man  out 
at  baseball  than  gather  a  hundred  into  the 
Sunday-school 

Observe  the  plate-passers  in  all  their  glory. 
As  like  as  two  peas  in  a  pod,  you  say;  but  I 
deny  it.  They  are  as  other  men,  and  have 
hearts  and  feelings  and  even  romances.  The 
one  is  president  of  the  Upidee  Manufacturing 
Company,  and  the  other  is  cashier  of  the 
Upida  National  Bank.  See  how  much  more 
authority  Upidee  has  than  Upida  as  they 
march  up  the  aisle  in  West  Point  style,  while 
the  organist,  who  knows  his  business,  executes 
a  finale  to  the  offertory  in  2-4  time. 

Unhook  Upidee's  ribs  and  look  into  his  heart. 
Behold  the  picture:  The  individuals  who  are 
the  choice  of  the  few  Representative  Men  of 
the  Nations  of  the  Earth  are  gathered  together 
to  determine  a  few  of  the  things  which,  as  the 
parson  intimates  in  his  prayer,  rest  in  the  Hand 
of  God.  Note,  please,  that  Upidee  is  a  mem- 
ber of  this  committee. 

[107] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Upida  looks  secretly  at  an  entirely  different 
picture.  If  he  had  only  had  the  benefit  of  a 
college  education,  he  thinks,  and  if — but  with 
no  disloyalty  to  Harriet,  be  it  said — he  had  not 
married,  he  might  be  in  some  indefinite  place 
among,  and  a  part  of,  a  group  of  people  of 
distinct  and  illuminating  culture.  He  has 
bought  on  subscription  so-called  libraries  of 
the  World's  Best  everything,  which  he  reads 
with  diligence;  but,  unhappily,  he  cannot 
remember  what  he  reads.  He  is,  in  truth,  a 
caricature  of  a  man  of  culture,  but  he  is  not 
funny  except  for  the  little  kink  in  his  mind 
about  what  sounds  like  "collie  jedgication." 

Bachelors  of  Art  find  some  other  reason  why 
it  is  not  given  unto  them  to  browse  in  the 
pleasant  pastures  of  the  mind,  while  those 
without  a  degree  find  a  delectable  sorrow  in 
the  belief  that  this  is  their  greatest  lack.  I 
am  sure  that  I  should  like  Upida  better  than 
Upidee,  although  the  latter  is  a  far  more 
efficient  head  of  the  Upidee  Manufacturing 
Company  than  his  brother  plate-passer  could 
ever  be. 

Harriet,  the  wife  of  Upida,  is  a  living  joy 
to  the  man  with  eyes.  Her  ideal  is  the  Affable 
Lady.  She  makes  dreadful  noises  when  she. 
talks,  she  bumps  into  people  right  and  left, 
and,  having  done  so,  assumes  varied  and  sur- 
[108] 


prising  attitudes  of  affability.  She  does  not 
read  a  book  in  six  months,  but  she  does  a 
thousand  generous  and  kindly  things  in  far  less 
time,  which,  after  all,  make  her  the  more  worth 
while.  Indeed,  she  comes  closer  to  her  ideal 
than  most  people.  Her  ideal  is  not  awkward 
and  does  not  cackle,  whereas  she  is  the  one, 
and  does  the  other;  and  these  are  the  greatest 
differences  between  her  and  what  she  would 
like  to  be. 

Here  comes  the  meanest  man  in  seven 
counties,  and  yet  see  what  an  inspiring  picture 
he  carries  in  his  heart — the  vision  of  the  Just 
Man.  He  only  wants  what  is  right;  no  one 
ever  said  that  he  took  what  did  not  belong  to 
him.  He  owes  no  man  aught  save  good-will — • 
and  he  is  not  wasteful  of  that.  "Fairness" 
is  his  watchword,  which  he  pronounces  with  a 
flattened  a,  as  in  "hat."  The  picture  is  none 
too  clear,  but  it  is  there,  nevertheless,  of  men 
and  women  coming  to  him  from  far  and  near 
for  judgment  sound  and  ripe,  untempered  by 
foolish  emotion .  These  people  gathering  round 
him  in  his  imagination  have  finally  discovered 
that  his  point  of  view  is  the  only  sane  one. 

But  we  need  not  abide  in  church  to  see  the 
picture-show.  On  the  street,  in  the  cars,  al- 
most anywhere  that  people  congregate,  is  a 
good  place.  There  is  the  humorist  with  his 
[109] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

wink  and  smile;  the  satirist  with  his  sneer; 
the  man  of  feeling  with  a  countenance  which 
he  hopes  expresses  suffering;  the  heavy,  fussy 
man  with  visions  of  airy  grace,  as  you  may  see 
by  his  agile  steps  and  sweeping  gestures.  A 
feature  at  once  encouraging  and  pathetic,  that 
one  sees  on  every  hand,  is  a  willingness  and 
seeming  preparedness  to  undertake  great 
responsibilities;  big,  dramatic  responsibilities. 
Sometimes  it  is  great  sport,  and  then  again  you 
wish  you  could  not  see  the  grim  caricature 
which  you  resent. 

I  have  in  mind  a  man,  of  noble  ambitions, 
a  few  years  ago,  whose  sense  of  duty  took  him 
among  a  group  of  men  who  were,  on  the  whole, 
a  tough  brotherhood.  To  even  things  up,  he 
addressed  himself  in  his  play-time  to  the  ultra- 
fashionable,  among  whom  he  was  welcome. 
He  told  good  stories  and  was  greatly  desired 
by  those  who  followed  relaxation  as  a  primary 
object,  while  the  tough  brotherhood  liked  this 
popularity  because  it  established  their  leader 
as  having  rare  social  qualities. 

Years  have  passed,  the  ambition  to  be  of 
great  service  and  do  great  things  has  been 
laid  aside,  but  the  disposition  to  be  very  smart 
socially  remains  well  established.  It  abounds 
in  him,  in  his  speech,  his  accent,  his  bearing, 
and  his  views  of  life.  His  comments  on  peo- 
[110] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

pie  have  to  do  almost  wholly  with  their  short- 
comings and  their  absurdities;  and  they  arc 
made  in  derision.  So,  while  his  interest  is 
keenest  in  observing  the  ridiculousness  of 
others,  he  himself  is  becoming  a  comedy  char- 
acter of  the  tired,  bored  type.  Twenty  years 
ago  this  type  was  a  prime  favorite  in  low 
comedy,  and  it  is  still  a  stock  feature  in 
variety-shows/ 

Where  poverty  pinches  there  is  the  least 
caricature.  Neither  good  manners  nor  ideals 
are  easily  maintained  under  stress  of  poverty. 
Poverty  wants  work  and  meat;  and  there  is 
no  imagination  in  such  a  need.  Perhaps  that 
is  why  the  exceptional  men,  the  men  of  genius, 
are  so  frequently  those  who  have  had  the 
strength  to  cling  to  their  ideals  through 
poverty.  The  rest  of  us  might  have  given  up 
under  the  strain. 

I  have  tried  to  satisfy  myself  wherein  the 
humor  of  poverty  lies.  The  first  impulse,  if 
one  wants  to  make  a  picture  of  a  funny  man, 
seems  to  be  to  draw  a  raggety  man.  Perhaps 
it  is  because  poverty  offends  against  the  con- 
ventions of  luxury,  and  the  rudimentary  mind 
conceives  luxury  as  the  fulfilment  of  joy  and 
pleasantness. 

This  comedy,  this  caricature  play  of  our  own 
ideals,  steps  in  as  soon  as  we  have  a  chance  to 
[111] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

grow.  It  is  with  us,  dancing  round  and  about 
us,  so  long  as  we  amount  to  a  hill  of  beans. 
When  we  are  used  up  or  spoiled,  and  our 
ambitions  become  atrophied,  and  when  we 
finally  haven't  even  the  desire  to  be  anything 
better  than  we  are,  we  may  cease  to  be  absurd. 
Until  then  we  may  as  well  make  the  best  of  it; 
we  are  bound  to  be  but  caricatures  of  what  we 
really,  inwardly,  secretly  want  to  be.  We 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  it;  all  the  other  fellows 
ere  in  the  same  boat. 


C2HBOH 

IN  considering  the  effects  of  alcohol,  it  is  very 
difficult  to  get  the  tacts  so  co-ordinated  as 
to  approach  the  truth.  Physicians  have 
a  veritable  passion  for  telling  their  patients 
either  to  cut  their  drink  in  half  or  to  stop 
it  altogether,  and,  as  they  speak  from  con- 
siderable experience,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
they  are  right.  All  of  us  know  that  we  should 
not  drink  too  much,  and  many  of  us  are 
equally  aware  that  we  should  not  drink  at 
all;  that  the  only  safe  rule  is  not  to  touch 
it.  In  short,  the  more  we  consider  alcohol 
in  relation  to  the  individual  the  more  firmly 
is  the  fact  impressed  upon  us  that  it  is  a 
vicious,  harmful  poison,  and  the  charges  against 
it  pile  themselves  up  in  such  profusion  that  it 
almost  seems  as  if  the  use  of  it  in  any  form 
should  be  prohibited  far  and  wide.  On  every 
hand  we  see  men  going  to  the  dogs  through 
drink,  and  the  sore  pity  of  it  is  that  so  often 
we  find  drunkards  to  be  the  spoiled  remnants 
of  fine  fellows,  of  men  that  it  is  a  shame  to 
waste. 

[113] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  take  a  different 
angle  of  vision  and  consider  society  as  affected 
by  alcohol,  we  reach  a  different  conclusion. 
Mankind  in  the  mass  seems  better  for  it. 
Totally  abstinent  races  and  peoples  do  not 
seem  to  get  ahead.  For  instance,  the  strip  of 
northern  Africa  extending  from  Egypt  to  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  and  from  the  Sahara  to  the 
Mediterranean,  was,  in  the  days  of  Carthage, 
the  garden  spot  of  the  world.  In  those  days, 
when  its  inhabitants  drank — some  too  much, 
others  not  so  much,  and  still  others  not  at  all — 
the  country  was  lively  and  prosperous.  Now 
for  over  a  thousand  years  its  people  have  been 
total  abstainers  and  they  have  proved  them- 
selves incapable  of  self-government. 

Persians  in  the  days  of  their  later  greatness 
construed  the  Koran  very  liberally,  and  old 
Omar  himself  is  indicative  of  their  habits. 
They  were  doubtless  very  bad  in  regard  to 
alcohol. 

Then  came  a  revival,  and  with  it  a  stricter 
construction  of  the  Holy  Book;  the  sinfulness 
as  well  as  the  evil  of  winebibbing  was  impressed 
upon  the  people,  abstinence  was  enforced,  and 
concurrently  with  this  came  the  decay  of 
Persian  art.  The  wonderful  pottery,  the 
embroideries,  the  tapestries,  the  rugs,  with 
their  sense  of  joyous  life,  everything  giving 
[114] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  impression  that  the  artist  who  created  it 
must  have  sung  as  he  worked,  are  from  the 
golden  days  before  the  people  of  Persia  went 
to  sleep.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  artists 
who  made  these  things  of  such  surpassing 
beauty  were  dipsomaniacs.  They  surely  could 
not  have  done  such  work  had  they  drunk  too 
much.  We  only  know  as  a  fact  that  concur- 
rent with  this  marvelous  development  of  Per- 
sian art  the  Persians  drank,  and  that  Persian 
art  withered  and  died  in  approximate  concur- 
rence with  the  introduction  of  what  amounted 
to  prohibition. 

In  this  country  we  have  also  had  illuminating 
experiences.  For  instance,  in  Maine,  after 
Neal  Dow  had  incited  state-wide  prohibition, 
the  Greenback  idea  found  favor  among  the 
voters  and  a  majority  of  them  followed  the 
notion  that  a  promise  to  pay  is  payment. 
They  lost  their  grip  on  things,  and  the  sober, 
steady  sense  of  fairness  to  everybody  seemed 
to  depart  from  them.  So  also  in  Iowa  and 
Kansas,  with  prohibition  came  Populism,  the 
vagaries  of  Jerry  Simpson,  and  the  idea  that 
if  one  is  a  farmer  he  should  have  unlimited 
credit  at  the  treasury  of  the  government.  In 
Georgia,  Texas,  and  other  Southern  states 
prohibition  amendments  were  followed  by 
increased  abnormalities  toward  negroes ;  where 
[1151 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

erstwhile  they  lynched  they  later  burned  at 
the  stake. 

These  apparent  sequelae  of  total  abstinence 
from  the  use  of  alcohol,  on  the  part  of  large 
groups  of  people  taken  collectively,  show  a 
remarkable  series  of  phenomena.  Viewed  in- 
versely as  to  elapsed  times,  we  note  as  symp- 
toms, the  lynchings  and  burnings  in  the 
Southern  states,  Populism  in  the  West,  the 
Greenback  heresy  in  Maine,  stupor  in  Per- 
sia, and  in  northern  Africa  hopeless  inability, 
a  race  intellectually  dead.  In  other  words,  in- 
tense excitability  with  entire  loss  of  inhibitory 
powers,  unrestrained  passions,  great  excite- 
ment over  foolish  ideas,  and  final  collapse — 
the  evidence  of  drunkenness  in  all  its  stages. 
Therefore,  although  not  conclusively  proved, 
it  would  seem  to  point  to  the  view  that  the 
practice  of  total  abstinence  from  alcohol  by  a 
whole  people  results  in  the  appearance  of 
serious  national  intoxication. 

If  this  view  is  justified,  we  should  seek  the 
cause  and  test  out  such  theories  as  present 
themselves. 

The  apparent  national  degeneration  that  goes 
with  abstinence  is  possibly  an  auto-intoxica- 
tion, but  it  may  also  be  the  natural  way  of  the 
animal  man.  His  cruel  savagery  we  find  in 
the  methods  of  modern  warfare,  his  selfishness 
1116] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

and  deceit  we  find  in  the  attitude  of  nations 
treating  with  one  another;  in  short,  the  group 
would  seem  to  represent  the  individual, 
unimproved.  The  normal  man  is  not  a  good 
citizen  until  he  learns  how  to  be  a  good  citizen. 
Ages  of  life  by  his  forebears  in  the  woods,  in 
huts,  and  in  caves  have  predisposed  him 
toward  selfishness,  with  little  heed  for  any  one 
outside  of  his  immediate  family  or  clan. 
Conscious  of  the  eyes  of  others,  as  a  member  of 
civilized  society  he  restrains  himself  more  or 
less;  but  without  these  social  inhibitions  he  is 
like  a  savage,  or  a  man  poisoned  with  alcohol. 
For  alcohol  destroys  these  inhibitions  for  the 
time  being,  and  the  old  saying,  in  vino  veritas, 
truthfully  indicates  that  in  drunkenness  the 
veneer  of  civilization  becomes  transparent,  and 
one  sees  the  wild  man  as  he  is  underneath. 

We  learn  from  Professor  Ehrlich  that  when 
a  poison  is  taken  into  the  system  there  are 
immediately  formed  side-chains,  so  called,  of 
anti-bodies  which  counteract  the  work  of  the 
poison.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that 
alcohol  is  a  poison,  and  it  is  also  presumable 
that  when  it  is  taken  into  the  system  there  are 
anti-bodies  formed  which  help  us  to  overcome 
its  evil  effects.  Indeed,  they  may  go  farther 
in  their  good  work  than  we  are  aware.  Their 
presence  may  account  for  the  sanity,  balance, 
9  [  117  ] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

sobriety,  and  give-and-take  qualities  that  are 
found  among  peoples  who  drink  in  reason 
and  which  seem  to  be  singularly  absent  from 
peoples  that  are  wholly  abstemious.  Do  the 
anti-bodies,  then,  make  for  sweet  reason- 
ableness among  those  who  can  stand  the 
poison?  Surely  they  do  not  among  those 
rugged  fellows  who  imbibe  great  quantities  of 
drink  without  apparent  physical  injury.  Such 
are  usually  morose,  selfish,  and  disagreeable, 
thus  showing  the  results  of  the  poison  itself 
rather  than  its  antidote.  The  real  question, 
which  does  not  seem  to  have  been  answered 
thus  far  by  physiological  experiment  or  other- 
wise, is  whether,  among  the  great  majority 
who  do  not  drink  to  excess  and  yet  who  do 
drink  within  reason,  there  is  induced  by  these 
anti-bodies  an  indisposition  to  give  way  to 
excess  and  a  disposition  to  act  in  harmony 
with  others.  This  is  the  oath  which  leads 
unto  civilization. 

The  effect  may  be  so  slight  as  to  be  noticeable 
only  in  the  light  of  history,  and  yet  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  phenomena  of  sanity  and 
reasonableness  in  the  mass,  despite  the  almost 
innumerable  tragedies  of  drink  among  in- 
dividuals. 


118] 


WASTE 

SUPPOSE  you  own  a  million  bushels  of 
wheat  and  hold  it  in  your  own  elevator, 
all  free  and  clear.  For  the  purpose  of 
argument,  let  us  say  that  you  carry  your  own 
insurance,  so  that  there  is  nothing  to  hinder 
you  from  doing  what  you  like  with  that  wheat. 
It  is  yours.  Let  us  also  suppose  that  there  is  a 
famine  in  the  land  and  that  people  are  hunger- 
ing for  bread.  Your  price  is  two  dollars  a 
bushel.  The  people  refuse  to  pay  the  price 
and  you  make  no  contracts  of  sale.  Mass- 
meetings  are  held  and  you  are  denounced  as  an 
old  skinflint,  but  you  can  stand  that.  You 
raise  your  price  to  three  dollars  a  bushel.  It 
appears  that  you  would  be  within  your  rights. 
Now  let  us  suppose  that  you  lose  your  temper, 
being  annoyed  at  all  this  clamor,  and  you 
declare  that  you  will  show  that  rabble  that  you 
are  not  to  be  trifled  with,  and  you  proceed  to 
burn  down  your  elevator  and  its  contents  so 
that  nobody  may  have  your  wheat.  As  soon 
as  you  destroy  the  property  you  are  com- 
mitting an  offense  against  public  welfare. 
[1191 


PERCOLATOR   CAPERS 

That  is  the  one  thing  which,  as  owner  of  the 
wheat,  you  must  not  do,  for  that  is  waste. 

Now,  waste  is  waste,  whether  it  be  occasioned 
by  malice,  by  wilfulness,  through  ignorance 
or  through  laziness;  the  effect  is  the  same. 
Public  welfare  embraces  the  interest  we  have 
in  common  in  all  the  things  there  are,  and 
we  must  not  offend  against  it.  This  is  not 
socialism;  it  is  philosophy. 

Waste  is  the  crime  of  to-day  and  it  is  es- 
pecially the  great  crime  of  this  awful  war: 
waste  in  human  life,  in  hope,  in  love,  and  in  the 
common  savings  of  us  all.  Millions  of  dollars' 
worth  of  the  savings  of  the  people  of  this  earth, 
all  of  them  our  brothers  and  our  sisters,  have 
been  daily  burned  up,  exploded,  and  wasted  in 
the  madness  of  the  nations;  and  even  that  is  a 
trifle  when  we  compare  it  to  the  great  human 
value  of  the  lives  that  are  lost.  It  will  not 
make  any  people  rich,  and  we  Americans  have 
our  part  of  the  burden  to  bear.  Lets  hope 
the  war  is  over.  Then  waste  must  stop; 
it  must  stop  if  we  are  to  advance  in  humanity 
and  civilization  over  and  beyond  the  yawning 
gap  made  by  the  lust  of  blood,  pride  of  race, 
and  the  vanity  of  kings.  When  the  war  had 
been  in  progress  but  a  little  while  the  cost  of 
it  was  already  laid  upon  future  generations; 
extra-hard  labor  and  sweat  must  come  from 
[120] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

infants  now  at  their  mothers'  breasts,  to 
make  good  this  debauch  of  blood  and  fire. 
And  in  the  very  measure  that  we  waste  is  the 
sentence  at  hard  labor  upon  the  rising  genera- 
tion prolonged.  We  cannot  get  out  of  it  by 
being  American,  the  debt  is  upon  us,  in 
unequal  measure,  it  is  true,  but  the  debt, 
the  obligation  to  make  up  the  losses,  is 
upon  us  all. 

We  cannot  get  away  from  the  fact  that  we  are 
all  parts  of  one  great  organization — divided 
up  into  nations  and  races  and  sects;  but  these 
divisions  are  slight  compared  with  the  fact 
that  we  are  all  partners  in  the  great  firm,  and 
that  the  earth  and  its  fullness  is  the  firm's 
property.  The  articles  of  copartnership  arc 
human  laws  and  customs,  but  every  normal 
one  of  us  has  the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness.  It  takes  some  of  the 
property  to  maintain  this,  and  we  should, 
if  we  have  any  conscience  at  all,  contribute 
value  for  our  share.  But  whether  our  con- 
tribution be  great  or  slight,  and  whether  our 
rewards  be  full  or  meager,  the  one  thing  that 
we  must  not  do  is  waste  from  the  general 
store.  In  this  respect,  ownership  is  indeed 
stewardship;  and  the  greater  our  possession 
so  much  the  greater  is  our  responsibility. 

Let  us  leave  aside  consideration  of  the  in- 
[121] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

dustries  with  their  preposterous  destruction  of 
values,  and  address  ourselves  to  the  incidents 
of  daily  life. 

The  great  packing-houses  urge  people  to 
buy  the  cheaper  cuts  of  meat  because  the 
demand  for  those  of  higher  cost  is  so  great 
that  the  prices  are  out  of  all  proportion.  Why 
do  we  not  take  the  cheaper  cuts  and  make 
more  savory  dishes  out  of  them?  Sheer,  gross 
ignorance  of  the  art  of  cooking  and  a  stupid, 
uncultured  taste  for  what  your  true  gourmet 
would  scorn,  is  the  real  reason. 

Suppose  you  build  yourself  a  place  in  the 
country  and  begin  to  have  your  troubles. 
Your  wife  can't  keep  servants,  your  garden 
is  a  failure,  your  drainage  system  clogs  up, 
"Everybody  is  trying  to  cheat  me,"  you  say, 
while  the  expense  is  beyond  all  reason.  Well, 
do  you  want  to  know  what  the  trouble  is? 
It  is  ignorance,  your  ignorance.  Why  did  you 
want  to  build  yourself  a  lordly  estate  when 
you  did  not  know  how  to  administer  it?  Your 
grandfather  knew  how  to  run  his  part  of  the 
farm,  and  your  grandmother  understood  hers; 
and,  while  they  worked  as  you  do  not  want  to 
work,  they  did  not  do  the  evil  thing  that  you 
are  doing — they  did  not  waste.  Look  back 
a  generation  or  so  at  the  great  estates  in 
England,  Germany,  France — and  in  America, 
[122] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

too.  Did  everybody  cheat  the  lords  of  the 
manor  and  their  ladies?  They  did  not,  and 
there  was  fully  as  much  cupidity  afoot  then 
as  there  is  now.  The  landholders  knew  their 
business,  they  were  to  the  manner  born.  It 
appears  that  you  do  not  know  your  business, 
and  you  do  not  deserve  a  big  place  in  the 
country  until  you  know  how  to  administer  it. 
Of  course  the  "natives"  and  the  people  in  the 
village  laugh  at  you;  but  the  trouble  is,  you 
are  not  laughed  at  enough;  you  should  be 
laughed  at  so  much  that  you  would  quit  the 
business  of  running  a  landed  estate  and  pro- 
ceed to  inhabit  a  small  place  where  you  do 
not  commit  waste.  It  is  your  wastefulness 
that  the  people  are  laughing  at,  and  they  are 
doing  a  useful  and  praiseworthy  act  when 
they  do  so. 

The  sooner  we  learn  this  palpable  fact,  that 
wastefulness  is  an  offense  against  public  wel- 
fare and  that  whoever  commits  waste  offends, 
the  sooner  we  shall  drive  the  wastrels  back  into 
their  holes  and  provide  for  a  better  order  of 
living  all  around. 

Of  course  we  must,  in  private  life,  do  as  the 
honorable  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  do; 
we  must  use  the  rule  of  reason.  It  may  be 
that  in  going  to  your  business  in  your  yacht 
you  find  opportunity  to  plan  out  your  day's 
[123] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

work  more  economically  than  if  you  were  to 
come  in  on  the  train  as  a  commuter.  The 
point  is,  if  it  takes  a  dozen  men  and  a  poor 
man's  winter-supply  of  coal  and  a  day's 
interest  on  a  snug  competence  to  bring  you  to 
town,  your  coming  must  be  worth  while;  it 
must  pay  for  itself  in  augmenting  the  general 
store  of  the  world's  wealth,  whether  it  belongs 
to  you  or  to  others.  We  cannot  say  that  it  is 
waste  to  maintain  a  yacht  or  any  other  luxury, 
provided  that  in  maintaining  it  you  contribute 
enough  to  warrant  it. 

Well,  who  is  to  tell  whether  you  are  com- 
mitting waste  or  not?  You  may  be  the  most 
modest  of  men  and  contribute  much  and  spend 
little,  and  on  the  other  hand  you  may  be  a 
bounder  and  magnify  a  hundredfold  your 
every  little  service.  Who  is  to  tell?  Nobody, 
until  your  profligate  habits  become  evident. 
Then  it  may  become  evident  that  you  are  a 
proper  subject  for  scorn  or  taxation  or  some- 
thing to  bring  you  to  your  senses. 

Your  money,  under  usual  conditions,  is  like 
so  much  wheat — you  can  put  it  out  at  interest, 
or  speculate  with  it  with  a  view  to  making 
much  more  or  losing  it ;  it  is  yours  to  hold  and 
administer,  but  you  must  not  destroy  it. 

You  can  destroy  it  by  making  it,  as  a  whole, 
fail  in  productiveness.  The  idea  that  the 
[1241 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

milliners,  jewelers,  tailors,  and  purveyors  of 
luxuries  who  minister  to  your  vanity  are  each 
earning  a  living,  and  so,  by  keeping  money  in 
circulation,  are  doing  something  useful,  is 
all  right  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  but  it 
may  not  be  all  right  as  regards  you.  They 
may  be  making  their  living  while  you  are 
wasting  yours,  and  when  the  balance  is  struck 
the  deficit  will  show  on  your  side,  not  theirs. 
They  are  pegging  away,  making  what  they  can 
out  of  life,  which  is  just  what  you  may  not 
be  doing. 

The  real  point  is  whether  you  are  worth  all 
this  fuss  or  not.  Is  your  contribution  to  the 
general  welfare  enough  to  warrant  it?  If  so, 
well  and  good;  go  ahead  and  enjoy  yourself. 
But  it  is  just  as  well  not  to  be  wrong  in  this 
matter.  A  bank  president  may  easily  be  too 
conservative  and  cause  his  bank  to  die  of  dry 
rot  by  excess  of  caution ;  but  the  great  danger 
is  that  he  may  err  on  the  other  side  and  make 
loans  which  are  not  good.  That  spells  ruin. 
In  the  same  way  you  can  hoard  your  money 
and  live  in  a  mean  fashion  while  you  are 
wealthy,  without  gaining  merit ;  but  to  squander 
what  you  have,  no  matter  how  rich  you  are, 
beyond  those  needs  which  make  for  comfort 
and  right  living  and  efficiency  is  to  offend 
against  public  welfare.  It  is  doing  what  Old 
[1251 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Skinflint  did  when  he  lost  his  temper  and 
burned  his  wheat. 

Suppose  you  hire  a  hundred  men  to  carry 
stones  from  field  number  one  to  field  number 
two,  at  the  current  rate  of  wages,  and  it  takes, 
let  us  say,  a  month  to  do  it.  Then  suppose 
you  hire  them  to  take  the  stones  back  from 
field  number  two  to  just  where  they  found 
them  in  field  number  one.  That  will  take 
another  month.  The  men  will  have  earned 
their  wages;  they  will  have  given  so  much 
labor  for  the  sum  received.  You,  however, 
as  administrator  for  what  you  have  spent, 
which  is  that  part  of  the  world's  savings 
represented  by  five  thousand  days'  work, 
will  have  wasted  it.  The  world's  store  will 
have  been  depleted  by  five  thousand  days' 
work. 

Again  we  must  use  the  rule  of  reason.  Many 
industries — indeed,  nearly  all  of  them — often 
employ  men  in  just  such  unprofitable  tasks  to 
maintain  their  organization,  which  is  of  great 
value.  And  there  is  work  done  for  art  which 
is  hard  to  measure  in  concrete  values,  but 
which  is  of  prime  necessity  if  we  are  ever  to 
become  civilized.  We  cannot  live  for  utility 
alone  without  making  the  world  too  dreary 
a  place  to  live  in.  But  the  fact  remains  that 
the  composite  savings  of  the  world  are  a 
[126] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

store  in  which  all  have  an  interest.  This 
store  has  been  greatly  depleted  by  the  dreadful 
war  which  has  raged.  The  world  will  be  much 
poorer  in  the  future  than  it  was  before.  The 
store  will  be  less.  Waste  will  be  more  quickly 
felt.  Perhaps  it  would  be  well  to  trim  our 
sails  to  meet  the  new  conditions,  to  spend  no 
more  than  we  would  think  ourselves  entitled  to 
spend  on  luxuries  and  vain  display  if  we  were 
somebody  else  and  were  in  the  waters  of 
tribulation. 

There  is  neither  art  nor  wisdom  nor  philoso- 
phy in  prodigal  waste.  And  it  offends  against 
the  public  welfare. 


SCIENCE    IN    THE    HUMANITIES 


IN  medieval  days,  when  ecclesiasticism  ruled, 
there  were  venturesome  spirits  who  held 
that  there  might  be  truth  without  dogma. 
They  sought  to  discover  from  the  literature 
and  life  of  Greece  and  Rome  those  facts  of 
human  nature  which  were  available,  and 
yet  were  wholly  removed  by  their  antiq- 
uity from  the  speculations  of  dogma  and 
the  dangers  of  heresy.  These  fields  of  re- 
search became  known  in  time  as  the  Human- 
ities, and  as  such  they  are  known  to-day.  The 
subject  includes,  not  only  Greek  and  Latin 
literature,  but  the  general  domains  of  philology, 
history,  and  archeology.  The  habits  of  Science 
have  aided  in  the  organization,  the  thorough- 
ness, and  the  order  of  these  studies;  but  I 
make  bold  to  postulate  that  Science  has  not 
yet  developed  sufficiently  to  be  classed  among 
the  Humanities.  It  has  been  a  servant,  but 
not  a  companion  of  the  temple. 

Science   has   accomplished   miracles   of   re- 
search in  regard  to  human  comfort  and  well- 
[1281 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

being,  but  despite  the  contributions  of  psy- 
chology and  of  social  and  political  inquiry, 
it  has  not  yet  done  its  part  in  teaching  us  to 
understand  one  another  better.  Its  language 
is  definite,  distinct,  mathematical,  and  uncon- 
scionably ugly.  If  it  is  spoken  in  the  presence 
of  the  uninformed,  they  hasten  away  or  they 
strive  to  change  the  subject.  It  is  not  inviting, 
it  is  difficult  to  learn;  and  yet,  once  we  have 
mastered  it,  we  find  it  devoid  of  all  refinement. 
Whoever  has  a  fair  reading  knowledge  of  any 
of  the  major  living  languages  can  readily 
translate  a  scientific  book  from  it  into  his 
mother  tongue.  Even  to  write  a  scientific 
work  in  a  foreign  language  does  not  require 
very  much  greater  facility. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  the  literature  of  the 
Humanities,  which  touch  all  the  arts.  It  is 
fortunate  that  those  who  hold  to  the  mechan- 
istic theory  of  life  are  full  of  enthusiasm  and 
believe  seriously  in  the  tenets  of  their  creed, 
for  they  are  under  obligation  to  explain  the 
phenomenon  of  personality.  If  this  be  due 
to  reactions  within  the  mind,  qualified  by  its 
physical  and  chemical  structure,  including  the 
action-patterns  there  recorded  by  processes  of 
photochemistry,  the  doctrine  must  be  set  forth 
in  other  than  technical  language.  To  do  this 
will  require  an  achievement  in  the  art  of  scien- 
[129J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

tific  literature  which  has  not  yet  been  generally 
attained.  The  refinements  of  speech  which 
indicate  personality  are  not  present  in  the 
abstract  language  of  Science. 

It  has  been  said  that  it  makes  but  little  dif- 
ference what  one  believes;  it  is  how  he  believes 
that  is  far  more  important.  We  may  say  that 
this  has  to  do  with  the  art  of  living.  And 
again,  it  might  be  maintained  that  it  is  what 
a  man  says  rather  than  how  he  says  it  that 
determines  whether  his  utterances  shall  be 
heard  or  read  and  remembered.  Language, 
as  we  have  observed  elsewhere,  is  a  vehicle  of 
intellectual  traffic.  Its  business  is  to  carry 
ideas,  mental  concepts,  information,  and,  at 
times,  the  truth.  It  is  a  clumsy  invention,  its 
steering  apparatus  is  very  defective,  and  with 
the  greatest  caution  it  often  carries  us  along 
the  paths  of  error.  This  is  not  wholly  to  be 
avoided  by  precision.  There  is  always  the 
receiving  mind;  and  the  purpose  of  language 
is  not  fulfilled  until  the  receiving  mind  has 
accepted  and  placed  in  storage  in  its  proper 
compartment  of  the  brain  the  bundle  of  thought 
addressed  to  it.  Meticulous  precision  often 
misdirects  the  bundle. 

The  other  day  Professor  Simkhovitch  showed 
me  a  Chinese  painting  made  in  the  eleventh 
century  which  impressed  me  very  deeply.  It 
(130] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

was  said  of  the  artist  who  painted  it  that  he 
depicted  the  souls  of  things.  It  was  a  simple 
landscape,  with  a  little  house  in  the  foreground 
and,  beyond,  a  lake  or  an  arm  of  the  sea. 
Beyond  and  about  this  were  mountains,  and 
over  the  lake  was  a  low  fog.  It  was  a  little 
picture,  the  size  of  the  leaf  of  an  octavo  book, 
taken  from  an  album  in  some  old  collection. 
That  is  all  I  can  say  in  describing  it  in  detail, 
and  yet  it  had  a  magic  beauty,  a  beauty  of  the 
kind  that  imposes  silence,  that  arouses  a  cos- 
mic emotion  and  makes  friends  draw  close 
together  when  they  see  it.  There  was  not  a 
single  trick  in  the  making  of  it  to  remind 
one  of  the  painter,  not  a  single  stroke  of  the 
brush  to  call  attention  to  the  painting,  but  on 
the  margin  some  owner  wrote  of  the  artist, 
centuries  ago,  "He  useth  his  inks  as  the  Lord 
God  useth  His  waters,  neither  of  which  have 
I  the  gift  to  understand." 

I  have  the  faith  to  believe  that  there  are 
these  cosmic  emotions  awaiting  us  in  Science 
as  soon  as  we  learn  that  it  takes  the  soul 
of  an  artist  to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth, 
with  all  the  facts  correlated  unto  the  truth. 
If  you  desire  to  tell  me  how  much  you  know, 
you  must  tell  it  to  me  in  wrords  that  I  can 
understand.  As  soon  as  you  use  expressions 
with  which  I  am  unfamiliar  I  cease  to  marvel 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

at  your  wisdom,  and  begin  to  wonder  whether 
or  not  you  are  practising  quackery.  The 
whole  armament  of  quackery  consists  in  words 
and  phrases  that  the  listener  does  not  under- 
stand. You  must  keep  within  my  compre- 
hension if  you  are  to  have  good  standing  with 
me.  My  ignorance  may  be  colossal  —  in- 
deed, I  assure  you  that  it  is — but  I  hold  that 
it  does  not  accord  with  the  graces  of  life  to 
offend  me  because  of  it.  We  children  of  the 
earth  have  our  weaknesses;  we  are  not  missing 
the  mark  when  we  assert  that  every  one  of  us 
is,  in  one  respect  or  another,  feeble-minded. 
It  is  pathetic  to  consider  how  widely  the  field 
of  our  vision  is  covered  with  blind  spots.  That, 
perhaps,  is  why  we  are  so  sensitive.  It  is  not 
given  to  us  to  look  intimately  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  one  another,  and  so  we  do  not 
know  where  the  blind  spots  and  the  blurred 
spots  are.  Therefore  we  must  be  simple  in  our 
speech.  We  never  shall  know  all  that  goes  on 
within  the  consciousness,  even  of  those  closest  to 
us;  but  the  key  to  understanding  is  simplicity. 
What  is  simplicity  to  one  is  not  simplicity  to 
another,  and  yet  the  crossroads  from  achieve- 
ment into  the  minds  of  our  fellows  must  be 
maintained  as  well-beaten  paths  if  Science  is  to 
enter  into  the  daily  life  of  the  world.  It  is  not 
childishness  to  speak  in  a  language  that  a 
[132J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

child  can  understand.  It  is  art.  If  we  leave 
the  simplicity  of  art  out  of  consideration  when 
we  say  simple  things,  if  we  load  our  every- 
day speech  with  unnecessary  technicalities, 
what  medium  shall  we  have  when  we  want  to 
explain  something  difficult?  Then  language 
will  fail  us.  We  may  have  the  thoughts,  but 
they  will  die  within  us. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  how  much  good 
thought  dies.  It  is  not  alone  by  the  fires  of 
wrath  that  libraries,  and  storehouses  of  wis- 
dom, and  temples  made  holy  by  enshrining 
the  worship  of  many  generations  are  destroyed. 
That  which  is  ruined  by  war  and  hate,  or  even 
consumed  by  age,  is  less  than  that  which  is 
lost  because  the  mind  that  conceives  it  cannot 
find  the  words  with  which  to  tell  it.  Every  one 
of  us  knows  the  tragedy  of  talent  wasted  or 
gone  astray — lost  because  its  possessor  could 
not  speak;  because  the  words  were  not  avail- 
able. It  is  not  precision  that  such  men  lack; 
it  is  the  art  of  speech. 

Suppose  the  language  of  chemistry,  instead 
of  being  the  kind  of  Volapiik  that  it  is,  were 
something  desired  of  all  men  and  women  who 
look  for  the  fine  and  beautiful  things  in  life. 
The  imagination  is  almost  stunned  at  what 
might  ensue.  We  cannot  invent  this  thing, 
but  if  we  wish  for  it  hard  enough,  maybe  it 
10  [ 133 1 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

will  come  some  day.  Then  the  world  may  be 
vastly  different,  and  better  than  now. 

The  man  of  research  must  set  forth  his 
findings  in  terms  that  will  be  understood.  If 
he  studies  merely  for  his  own  satisfaction,  and 
does  not  contribute  his  results  to  the  great 
store  of  knowledge,  he  is  far  more  reprehensible 
than  the  miser;  for  the  miser  cannot  carry  his 
treasure  with  him  when  he  dies.  The  man  of 
research  can  do  what  amounts  to  just  this, 
and  it  is  his  duty,  his  obligation,  to  contribute 
what  he  has  learned,  the  treasures  of  nature 
that  he  has  won,  to  the  world.  Unless  he  does 
so,  he  may  die  insolvent,  a  debtor  to  the  world, 
a  bankrupt  in  human  history. 

The  man  of  Science  in  industry  has  a  similar 
problem,  which  is  not  only  a  duty,  but  a 
necessity,  if  he  would  succeed.  Unless  he 
owns  the  works,  he  cannot  direct  them;  and 
unless  he  can  explain  the  problems  of  materials 
and  reactions  to  his  directors,  he  can  hardly 
ask  them  to  follow  his  advice.  How  many 
industries  have  been  ruined  because  some  man 
who  knew  and  would  gladly  have  explained, 
lacked  the  art  to  explain! 

II 

We  talk  of  Science  and  Art  as  if  they  were 
beautiful  twin  sisters  of  Culture,  gracefully 
[134] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

standing  in  the  open  portal  of  Academe.  Fol- 
lowing this  vague  abstraction,  a  painter  will 
drape  a  brunette  model  for  Science  and  a  blond 
one  for  Art,  and  pose  them  as  bringing  gifts  to 
his  favorite  girl  or  his  more  insistent  wife, 
seated  in  a  big  chair  as  the  Civic  Spirit. 
Science  is  likely  to  offer  an  apothecary's 
balance,  and  Art  a  piece  of  a  plaster  cast  of  the 
Venus  de  Milo.  Then  the  picture  goes  up  in 
the  new  City  Hall. 

To  all  appearances  these  two  lovely  sisters 
are  inseparable;  they  vie  with  each  other  only 
in  the  abundance  of  their  gifts.  Gifts  they  do 
indeed  bring,  but  this  is  the  whole  substance 
of  their  relationship.  They  are  not  intimate 
at  all.  They  do  not  like  each  other;  they  do 
not  understand  each  other,  and  they  do  not 
even  speak  the  same  language.  And  they  are 
not  sisters. 

The  other  day  a  gentleman  distinguished  for 
his  eminence  in  affairs,  as  well  as  for  his 
achievements  as  a  patron  of  the  arts,  said  in 
substance:  "The  day  of  the  industrial  pioneer 
is  passing.  The  day  of  the  artist  is  at  hand. 
The  Greeks,  who  knew  innumerable  things 
that  we  have  not  yet  learned,  knew  also  the 
value  of  Art  in  the  development  of  citizenship. 
The  medieval  kings  knew  this,  too,  and  they 
built  cities  of  incomparable  beauty — the  cap- 
[1351 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

itals  of  states  adorned  with  the  best  that  we 
know  of  architecture  and  decoration;  and  then 
and  there  lived  happy  men  and  women  who 
found  joy  in  their  daily  tasks.  They  sang  at 
their  work.  They  did  the  things  they  wanted 
to  do  and  they  wanted  to  do  good  things,  being 
inspired  by  the  beauty  around  and  about 
them.  And  so  they  were  good  citizens." 

Those  were  days  when  Art  reigned  and 
Science  was  not.  These  are  days  when 
Science  reigns  and  Art  is  puny  and  sick.  Art 
shows  some  signs  of  recovery  and  growth,  but 
it  is  not  yet  thriving  because  it  has  not  yet 
found  its  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
Science,  on  the  other  hand,  has  grown  and 
prospered  enormously,  and  it  shows  the  effects 
of  too  rapid  growth.  Indeed,  Science  is  bad- 
mannered,  with  all  the  faults  of  the  newly  rich; 
and  it  has  no  ethical  standards.  It  will  take 
any  job  that  comes  along:  it  will  purify  air 
and  water  and  make  life  more  comfortable  and 
wholesome  and  clean;  or  it  will,  with  equal 
ardor,  take  up  its  latest  task  and  carry  out 
its  latest  achievements,  which,  to  its  shame 
be  it  said,  have  made  war  more  murderous, 
more  cruel,  more  horrible  than  ever  it  was 
before. 

Chemistry,  for  instance,  is  so  little  mated  to 
Art  that  if  we  are  to  mention  the  two  together 
[136] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

without  causing  a  smile,  we  must  call  chemistry 
by  the  abstract  name  of  Science.  We  do  not 
maintain  that  chemists  are  not  artists  in  life, 
or  that  they  are  men  without  the  refinements 
and  graces  that  follow  the  best  there  is  in 
thinking.  In  fact,  we  are  not  writing  of 
chemists  at  all;  we  are  writing  of  chemistry 
as  an  entity;  of  what  is  suggested  by  that 
black-haired  girl  with  the  scales,  if  you  please. 

Let  us  go  farther  than  this,  and  say  that 
we  are  not  yet  civilized  in  applied  science. 
Neither,  for  that  matter,  is  any  other  people; 
but  this  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  make 
the  effort  to  improve  ourselves.  And  Science 
will  not  become  wholly  civilized  in  its  work 
until  it  becomes  much  more  closely  affiliated 
with  Art  than  as  a  mere  purveyor  of  raw 
materials.  The  relation  of  Science  to  Art 
to-day  is  that  of  the  quarryman  who  gets  out 
marble  for  the  sculptor;  a  worthy  task  and 
good  service,  but  it  is  not  companionship. 

When  news  is  brought  that  a  chemical  fac- 
tory is  to  be  built  in  a  neighborhood  the 
disinterested  neighbors,  as  a  rule,  do  not  like 
it.  After  it  is  built,  and  when  it  proceeds  to 
befoul  the  air  and  bemess  the  streets,  those  who 
can  move  away  do  so.  I  am  not  blaming 
anybody  for  this;  I  am  merely  regretting  the 
fact  that  there  is  so  little  of  art  in  its  civic  or 
[137] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

public  sense  in  applied  chemistry.  In  the  in- 
dustries we  do  not  know  how  to  do  better  than 
hide  our  works  in  some  desolate  place  where 
there  is  least  likelihood  that  a  protest  will  be 
registered  against  us.  Our  business  with  the 
authorities  is  usually  of  a  legal  sort  in  which 
we  appear  as  defendants.  Then,  when  the 
civic  powers  intervene  and  make  us  contain  our 
nuisances  within  our  gates,  they  are  teaching 
us  the  first  principles  of  Art.  With  no  at- 
tempt at  definition,  we  know  that  Art  does  not 
offend  against  enlightenment,  and  we  shall 
also  postulate  that  it  makes  for  good  citizen- 
ship. 

No;  Science  and  Art  are  not  twin  sisters; 
the  decorative  painters  have  been  all  wrong. 
They  are  not  even  of  the  same  sex.  Science 
should  bear  in  mind  that  the  world  is  not  com- 
plete, and  he  should  address  himself  to  the  woo- 
ing of  Art.  Then,  when  they  are  wedded,  and 
we  are  all  their  children  by  adoption;  when 
chemical  factories  shall  have  become  adorn- 
ments to  the  places  where  they  are  built; 
when  industrial  works  shall  be  wished  for 
along  with  cathedrals  and  schools  and  mu- 
seums and  public  libraries;  when  the  opening 
of  a  mine  shall  predicate  a  center  of  enlight- 
ened citizenship  among  those  who  work  in  it, 
and  the  master  shall  be,  as  in  Leonardo's  day, 
[138] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

an  artist  because  he  is  an  engineer;  and  when 
the  language  of  science  shall  have  become  hu- 
man, living  speech — then  will  dreams  come 
true  and  a  golden  age  be  at  hand.  By  this 
sign  we  shall  know  that  Science  has  united 
with  the  Humanities.  Until  then  is  our  boast- 
ing vain. 

Ill 

It  has  been  our  habit  to  regard  Science  as 
an  impersonal  thing,  its  findings  absolute  rather 
than  relative;  and  in  this  respect  I  fear  we  have 
been  led  astray  by  the  vanity  of  dogma.  Now, 
dogma  is  the  result  of  what  Professor  Sumner 
called  the  innate  laziness  of  human  nature, 
whereby  each  generation  takes  for  granted  the 
conclusions  of  the  generations  past  merely  to 
save  trouble. 

Of  course  we  cannot  find  answers  to  all  our 
problems  as  we  meet  them,  without  drawing 
upon  the  experiences  of  the  fathers;  but  in 
consequence  of  this  ability  to  find  our  prob- 
lems ready  solved  for  us  have  come  some  of 
the  vicious  sequelse  of  dogma.  Among  them  is 
the  tradition  of  monkish  aloofness  and  scorn 
of  the  public  which  does  not  understand.  This 
leads  us  into  insocial  dullness  and  involves  us 
in  serious  faults  of  omission. 

Here  is  an  example.  One  of  the  great  leaders 
[139] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

in  astronomy  made  a  record  of  his  observations 
for  publication.  It  was  a  work  of  momentous 
importance.  The  author  found  such  joy  and 
inspiration  in  it  that  he  embodied  in  his  preface 
a  popular  exposition  of  what  was  demonstrated 
in  the  pages  that  followed.  The  preface  was 
at  once  a  scientific  summing-up  of  the  work, 
a  contribution  of  rare  merit  to  literature,  and 
an  illuminating  source  of  information  about 
astronomy  for  the  appreciative  lay  public.  He 
sent  a  copy  of  it  to  a  colleague,  asking  his 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  propriety  of  the  preface, 
written  in  terms  of  popular  speech.  The  reply 
came  promptly.  It  was  highly  improper,  said 
the  critic — contrary  to  the  dignity  of  the  pro- 
fession of  astronomy — and  it  would  surely  lower 
the  standing  of  the  author! 

Now  the  author's  standing  had  already  been 
made  by  his  achievements  in  research.  His 
colleague,  however,  seemed  to  think  that  the 
light  of  day  would  dim  the  truth,  and  he  suc- 
ceeded in  destroying  for  all  of  us  a  beautiful 
and  great  thing.  For  many  of  us  are  not 
learned  in  astronomy;  we  needed  just  that 
elucidation  which  the  preface  contained.  But 
it  is  lost. 

In  the  name  of  conscience,  what  authority 
have  those  of  us  who  follow  Science  with  in- 
terest to  hold  in  scorn  our  neighbors  whose 
[140] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

paths  of  study  have  led  them  through  other 
than  our  familiar  fields?  What  is  the  differ- 
ence between  our  ignorance  of  what  they  have 
studied  and  their  ignorance  of  what  they  think 
we  know?  Do  we  riot  ask  compassion  for  our 
own  shortcomings?  Then  should  we  not  grant 
it  unto  others?  It  is  only  through  such  scorn 
as  this,  or  from  laziness,  or  lack  of  sufficient  gen- 
eral culture,  to  express  ourselves  in  measures  of 
grace,  that  the  world  at  large,  both  schooled 
and  vulgar,  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
cannot  understand  the  man  of  Science  when 
he  speaks.  Even  the  history  of  Science  has  not 
yet  been  written.  Why  is  there  no  history  of 
science?  I  venture  to  say  that  it  is  because 
the  succeeding  stations,  the  platforms  of  its 
intelligence,  are  not  generally  known.  The 
clear,  lucid  definitions  are  not  yet  available. 
Somewhere  in  the  progress  there  has  been  a 
lapse,  and  I  hazard  the  guess  that  it  is  in  the 
literary  habits  of  men  of  research. 

Lavoisier  had  the  gift  of  making  things  clear 
in  a  remarkable  measure.  He  had  the  graces 
of  life  in  his  speech  as  well  as  in  his  bearing. 
On  that  dark  day  for  chemistry  when  he  was 
led  to  the  guillotine,  it  is  said  that  he  implored 
his  executioners  to  let  him  finish  the  work  in 
hand.  He  would  follow  them  gladly  as  soon 
as  the  work  was  finished,  and  they  might  watch 
[141] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

him  in  whatever  manner  they  pleased.  It 
would  mean  so  much  for  humanity,  he  pleaded. 
But  the  sansculottes  knew  better.  He  had 
already  freed  chemistry  from  the  bondage  of 
tradition.  From  what  other  bondage  might  he 
have  freed  us,  had  he  been  spared?  Perhaps 
he  would  have  revealed  things  still  unknown  to 
us,  or  which  we  see  only  as  through  a  glass, 
darkly.  And  then  the  history  of  Science  might 
have  been  written  long  ago. 

When  we  consider  the  nature  and  ways  of 
matter  we  find  that  it  is  far  from  being  im- 
personal. Nitrogen,  for  instance,  has  ways  of 
its  own  that  are  as  baffling  to  the  understand- 
ing as  are  the  ways  of  genius.  The  family  of 
halogens  have  any  number  of  Celtic  traits; 
the  green  chlorine  and  its  cousin  fluorine  are 
as  full  of  tricks  and  potentialities  of  danger 
as  any  Irish  lass  who  ever  lived.  What  is  the 
cosmic  history  of  lead?  Consider  the  al- 
lotrophy  of  tin!  We  cannot  all  enter  into  re- 
search as  to  these  whimsical  qualities;  so  why 
not  take  a  good-natured  view  of  all  inanimate 
things  and  tell  of  their  ways?  They  are  very 
interesting.  Then,  when  some  future  disciple 
of  Willard  Gibbs  tells  us  all  about  them,  that 
will  be  interesting,  too.  We  need  a  new  and  a 
livelier  vision  of  them,  just  as  we  need  dull 
catalogues  of  their  reactions,  and  speculations 
[142] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

as  to  the  reasons  why  they  take  place.  It  will 
do  us  no  harm  to  consider  the  personality  of 
matter.  There  is  an  esthetic  side  to  Science  if 
we  would  but  look  for  it. 

The  liturgy  of  Science  should  not  lack 
beauty.  Why  should  we  not  inspire  reverence 
and  enlightenment  instead  of  discouragement 
in  the  layman,  when  we  relate  the  observations 
of  men  of  vision  and  understanding?  Why  not 
employ  Art  and  speak  in  the  language  of  a 
child  as  often  as  we  can  in  telling  of  reactions 
and  phenomena  which  are  constantly  taking 
place  and  which  abound  in  cosmic  beauty? 

IV 

We  have  observed  that  the  Humanities  do 
not  include  Science,  and  that  Art  is  the  needed 
handmaiden  of  all.  We  have  noted  that 
Science  and  Art  are  less  closely  related  than 
they  might  be;  that,  in  fact,  they  are  not  on 
speaking  terms.  It  appears  also  that  Art,  in 
its  simplicity  of  speech  and  directness  of  man- 
ner, can  guide  Science  into  the  fold  of  the 
Humanities,  and  that  Science  must  make  the 
next  move  if  this  is  to  be  done.  The  step  is  to 
be  taken  by  the  adoption  of  human,  living, 
colloquial  speech  whenever  and  wherever  this 
is  possible,  in  place  of  the  employment  of 
[1431 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

technical  terms.    We  must  educate  ourselves 
to  do  this. 

Now,  whatever  the  substance  of  education 
may  be,  we  know  that  it  is  not  promiscuous 
memorizing.  An  assistant  to  Professor  Friedel, 
in  Paris,  once  asked  his  master  a  question  in 
organic  chemistry. 

"Sais  pas,"  answered  the  professor.  "Look 
it  up  in  Beilstein." 

A  few  days  later  he  asked  another  question 
and  received  the  same  response:  "Sais  pas. 
Look  it  up." 

Finally  the  assistant  said :  "The  world  knows 
you  as  one  of  the  greatest  authorities  on  organic 
chemistry;  yet,  whenever  I  ask  you,  you  tell 
me  to  look  up  answers  to  questions  that  surely 
are  familiar  to  you.  Is  this  because  you  do  not 
remember,  or  because  you  want  to  train  me 
in  habits  of  research?" 

The  old  man  took  him  by  the  arm  and  led 
him  into  the  library. 

"Voild!"  he  exclaimed;  "there  is  all  I  know. 
Do  you  expect  me  to  make  a  beehive  of  my 
mind,  storing  fragments  of  information  into 
every  little  compartment,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
the  good  things  of  life?  No,  indeed!"  he  con- 
tinued; "books  are  useful  instruments  and  we 
should  use  them.  But  the  general  principles — 
these  I  must  ever  keep  alive  in  my  mind." 
["144  ] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

Now  that  seems  to  me  to  be  the  essence  of 
education.  And  since  men  and  women  are 
uneducated  in  Science,  it  is  the  business  of 
those  who  have  to  do  with  it  to  make  the  sub- 
ject so  attractive  that  they  will  want  to  learn 
it.  This  cannot  be  accomplished  by  a  policy 
of  frightfulness;  and  it  is  better  to  be  in  good 
repute  than  to  be  feared  and  hated,  anyway. 
The  barrier  of  language  still  holds  the  followers 
of  Science  apart  from  the  otherwise  enlightened 
public;  and  yet  the  whole  of  its  terminology  is 
needed  for  records.  So  there  must  be  invented 
a  new  habit  of  speech  in  regard  to  Science, 
familiar  to  the  ears  of  the  public,  and  shocking 
only  to  those  pedants  who  consider  it  lacking  in 
dignity  for  a  man  of  Science  to  be  understood 
by  persons  who  are  as  intelligent  as  he,  but  who 
have  addressed  their  attention  to  other  pursuits. 

The  way  to  discover  this  means  of  com- 
municating ideas  should  be  found  in  exercise 
and  experiment,  repeated  again  and  again  until 
the  unwilling  listener  becomes  a  willing  one. 
We  might  take  for  example  the  Ancient  Mariner, 
T7ho  has  left  us  this  exposition  of  his  method: 

"I  pass  like  night  from  land  to  land; 

I  have  strange  power  of  speech- 
The  moment  that  his  face  I  see 
/  know  the  man  that  must  hear  me — 
To  him  my  tale  I  teach." 
[145] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

The  marvelous  tale  that  Science  has  to  tell 
is  still  more  wonderful  than  that  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner.  His  unwilling  listener  was  compelled 
to  hear  because  of  the  old  man's  emotion.  His 
emotion  gave  wings  to  his  words. 

We  may  recall  also  that  Huxley  brought  his 
emotion  to  bear  upon  what  he  said,  and  he  was 
understood.  Tyndall,  by  his  consummate 
mastery  of  the  art  of  letters,  is  still  the  unap- 
proached  example  of  how  to  write  of  Science. 
The  late  Robert  Kennedy  Duncan,  with  his 
poet's  vision  of  the  ways  of  nature,  could  arouse 
interest  in  whatever  he  spoke  about;  and  there 
seems  to  be  no  one  left  who  has  this  gift 
within  him. 

A  curious  feature  in  regard  to  many  efforts 
to  make  Science  popular  is,  to  use  a  topsy- 
turvy simile,  that  many  good  people  so  en- 
gaged have  overshot  their  mark.  Learned 
papers  are  prepared  for  the  cognoscenti  and  are 
duly  printed  in  the  scientific  journals.  Then, 
at  the  point  in  these  papers  where  it  is  shown 
that  a  bell  rings,  or  a  noise  is  made,  or  a  light 
is  shown,  the  popularizer  makes  his  abstract. 
This  is  then  edited  down  to  the  level  of  infants 
and  idiots,  and  it  is  usually  published  along 
with  puzzles  and  toy  news.  Such  literature 
does  not  induce  men  who  are  engaged  in  mak- 
ing scientific  history  to  contribute  informa- 
[146] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

tion,  nor  does  it  appeal  to  the  intelligent  pub- 
lic. Our  appeal  for  simplicity  is  for  simplicity 
of  speech,  not  for  stupidity  of  subject. 

At  one  time  I  was  loud  in  joining  the  chorus 
that  Science  should  at  all  hazards  be  taught  in 
the  schools.  It  is  so  easy  to  provide  for  every- 
thing desired  in  the  next  generation  by  adding 
it  to  the  curriculum  of  the  common  schools! 
There  is  physiology  taught  along  with  the 
multiplication  -  table,  and  psychology  some- 
tunes  taught  in  place  of  English.  Chemistry 
and  physics  are  urgently  called  for  in  scornful 
substitution  for  Latin  and  Greek,  and  the 
choice  of  botany  or  algebra  may  depend  upon 
the  unripe  judgment  of  a  child  and  his  prefer- 
ence for  the  easier  course.  The  mind  of  the 
child  is  a  wonderful  instrument,  but  its  opera- 
tion is  limited  in  capacity.  If  we  crowd  the 
process  of  school  with  too  many  subjects,  it 
will  be  of  no  more  advantage  to  the  pupil  than 
several  years  spent  in  constant  visits  to  moving- 
picture  shows. 

No;  the  business  of  schools  is  to  effect 
mental  preparedness  to  meet  such  conditions 
as  may  arise.  I  venture  to  say  that  the  great 
problem  of  schools  is  to  find  teachers  who  have 
the  art  to  teach.  This  requires  the  quick  per- 
ception, the  deft  understanding,  and  the  per- 
suasiveness of  the  professional  gambler,  who 
[147] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

must  at  once  arouse  the  cupidity  of  his  vic- 
tim and  put  his  suspicions  to  sleep.  The 
teacher  must  arouse  the  curiosity  of  whom- 
ever he  would  teach,  and,  by  subtlety  of  wit, 
find  an  entrance  into  his  understanding.  Of 
such  are  the  teachers  of  a  better  day  than  ours. 


It  seems  to  me  that  teaching  is  the  greatest 
of  the  arts,  and  that  every  one  of  us,  no  matter 
what  his  walk  of  life  may  be,  is  engaged  willy- 
nilly  for  a  good  part  of  his  time  in  teaching. 
Surely  every  father  and  mother  is  engaged  in 
it;  and  I  am  persuaded  that  the  vast  majority 
of  children  address  themselves  to  the  problem 
of  teaching  their  parents  that  the  life  of  the 
present  day  is  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
methods  of  a  generation  past.  The  master 
who  learns  how  to  handle  men  is  taught  by 
the  men  he  handles.  Senators  and  Congress- 
men in  the  throes  of  their  eloquence  strive 
to  teach  their  honorable  colleagues  what  they 
take  to  be  wisdom,  and  their  constituents  they 
try  to  inform  of  their  impassioned  patriotism. 
Whenever  we  endeavor  to  persuade  any  one 
to  do  as  we  want  him  to  do,  we  try  to  teach 
him.  Teaching  is  the  universal  art,  and  the 
greatest  of  all. 

[H81 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Now  the  greatest  thing  to  teach  is  the  science 
of  living,  the  understanding  of  human  reactions, 
the  ways  of  people  and  things,  and  the  cogni- 
zance of  them.  So  my  former  passionate  belief 
in  the  need  to  teach  children  thermodynamics, 
the  gas-laws,  the  chemical  elements,  osmosis, 
and  other  things  of  the  kind  has  lost  conviction 
as  the  years  of  meditation  have  come  upon  me. 
These  things  are  interesting,  intensely  inter- 
esting, but  most  of  us  do  not  know  how  to  make 
them  so.  Of  course,  most  of  us  do  not  under- 
stand anything  about  them;  but  of  those  who 
do,  the  majority  are  so  anxious  for  precision 
that  they  lose  the  sense  of  art  in  the  telling,  and 
so  forget  the  very  purpose  of  language. 

Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  lecture  on  the  con- 
stitution of  matter,  in  which  the  learned  man 
who  delivered  it  explained  a  certain  hypotheti- 
cal situation.  The  hypothesis  was  set  forth  with 
great  care  and  elaboration,  but  it  was  difficult 
to  comprehend.  After  spending  several  min- 
utes in  expounding  the  idea  the  professor 
looked  up  and  said,  "Like  beads  on  a  wire," 
and  straightway  every  one  breathed  a  sigh  of 
relief,  and  understood  him. 

When  we  can  teach  science  so  that  a  child 

can  understand  it,  let  us  teach  it  to  children; 

until  then,  is  not  our  main  business  to  look  for 

teachers  who  have  the  art  to  teach  anything 

11  [149] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

that  is  worth  while?  Who  wants  a  child  to 
prattle  Beilstein,  anyway?  If  grown-up  men 
and  women  with  well-trained  minds  cannot 
bring  themselves  to  listen  to  the  speech  of 
Science  so  long  as  it  sounds  as  it  does,  surely 
children  are  likely  to  be  confounded  by  it. 

I  do  not  want  to  run  amuck  at  this  point, 
although  I  can  smell  the  danger.  I  have  said 
that  the  way  to  learn  how  to  express  ourselves 
in  Science  is  by  experience;  and  here  I  find 
myself  drifting  into  a  field  in  which  I  claim  no 
right  to  speak — the  field  of  pedagogics.  I  hold 
no  brief  for  the  present  curricula  of  our  schools, 
nor  have  I  any  to  propose.  We  know  that  the 
ordinary  teacher  cannot  teach  Science,  and 
that  there  is  a  hazard  in  loading  him  with  the 
task.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  all  wrong 
that  what  we  call  the  Humanities  should  not 
include  a  knowledge  of  the  intellectual  tools 
with  which  men  work  for  progress  in  our  own 
day.  It  seems  a  pity  that  boys  and  girls  at 
school  should  not  know  of  the  synthesis  of 
sugars  from  water  and  carbon  diox'de  in  the 
green  leaves;  of  the  polymerization  (dreadful 
word!)  of  sugars  to  gums  and  starches  and 
cellulose.  It  seems  too  bad  that,  in  the  days 
when  their  faculties  of  observation  are  most 
acute,  their  eyes  should  not  be  opened  to  the 
history  of  the  hills  and  the  valleys  around  and 
[1501 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

about  them.  And  if  they  knew  more  of  the 
nature  of  the  nerve  reactions  of  the  human  ani- 
mal, it  almost  seems  that  it  would  be  easier 
rather  than  harder  to  teach  ethics. 

True,  the  art  of  teaching  classic  lore  is  thou- 
sands of  years  old;  it  has  at  least  the  benefit 
of  age.  The  art  of  teaching  mathematics  is 
also  of  ancient  days,  and  yet  I  sometimes  doubt 
if  the  philosophy  of  mathematics  is  efficiently 
taught  at  school.  On  the  other  hand,  the  art 
of  teaching  science  is  only  about  fifty  years 
old;  consequently  it  often  lacks  the  polish, 
the  finish  that  we  find  in  the  teaching  of  other 
subjects.  But  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
wait  a  thousand  years  for  improvement.  Why 
not  resolve  to  be  artists  at  the  work?  Then 
we  may  become  artists  in  the  work. 

Time  was  when  all  records  were  .made  in 
Latin  and  Greek.  At  present  they  are  made 
in  English,  French,  German,  Russian,  Czech, 
Hungarian,  Spanish,  Japanese,  and  Chinese, 
and  some  of  us  have  not  the  gift  of  tongues. 
So  we  are  in  a  quandary.  We  have  great  need 
of  scientific  thinking,  while  teachers  are  not 
equipped  in  the  art  of  developing  it,  and  chil- 
dren are  leaving  school  to  avoid  the  dull  work 
of  thinking  about  what  does  not  interest  them. 

Perhaps  my  meditations  have  led  me  astray; 
perhaps  it  would  be  wise  to  begin  with  Science 
1151] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

in  the  grammar-schools,  so  that  a  generation  of 
teachers  may  arise  who  can  impart  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  ways  of  stuff  and  the  phenomena 
of  energy.  Perhaps  it  would  be  wise  to  try  it 
on  the  present  generation  of  children,  and  let 
them  worry  out  their  own  salvation.  I  can 
speak  with  no  authority  in  regard  to  this.  But 
I  do  know  enough  to  say  that  we  need  more 
earnest,  more  inspired,  and  less  weary  teachers 
all  over  the  country,  and  that  the  way  to 
induce  the  right  young  men  and  women  to  take 
up  the  noble  vocation  is  to  do  honor  to  their 
calling.  Money  alone  will  not  bring  them:  we 
must  greet  them  with  a  more  gracious  attitude 
of  mind  and  heart.  Then,  out  of  their  more 
abundant  culture  and  more  impulsive  efforts 
will  proceed  the  gentle  voice  of  wisdom. 

I  am  convinced  that,  if  we  would  grow  in 
grace  as  a  people  and  wax  great  in  understand- 
ing and  develop  qualities  of  sympathy  that 
throw  a  light  on  the  road  toward  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  we  must  first  glorify  the  art  of  teaching. 
The  teachers  will  bring  their  art  with  them, 
and  then  the  day  of  triumphant  entry  of 
Science  into  the  temple  of  the  Humanities  wifl 
be  at  hand. 

True,  the  pathway  is  long  and  arduous. 
But,  as  the  people  wish  for  it  and  its  disciples 
wish  to  tell  of  it,  that  will  be  the  magic,  and 
[152] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

presto!  the  road  will  be  made  easy.  In  chem- 
istry, the  red-headed  family  of  the  halogens  will 
lead  in  the  march  of  the  elements.  The 
tricksy  catalysts  will  keep  the  people  wishing 
and  guessing,  to  maintain  the  magic.  And  all 
the  world  will  join  and  dance  in  the  joyous 
procession,  if  only  the  chanting  be  done  in  that 
simplicity  and  beauty  of  speech  which  Art 
knows,  but  which  Science  has  not  yet  learned. 


WHY    NOT? 

This  little  essay  was  written  about  1908  and  it  went 
the  rounds  of  the  magazines,  meeting  refusal  every- 
where until,  to  my  surprise,  the  editor  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  replied  that  he  was  resolved  to  publish  my 
amusing  satire.  It  appeared  shortly  after  he  received 
it  in  1911.  Now  in  point  of  fact  it  was  not  designed 
as  satire;  it  was,  as  I  told  him,  the  best  method  I  could 
think  of  for  prosecuting  warfare.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  delightful  correspondence  which  resulted  in 
many  other  contributions  and  a  marked  admiration 
on  my  part  for  the  distinguished  editor  of  that  great 
periodical.  Times  have  changed  in  stupendous  meas- 
ure since  then;  the  world  has  run  amuck,  and  whether 
Germans  who  have  caught  their  national  infection  will 
ever  recover  remains  hi  the  lap  of  the  future  for  decision. 
But  some  day  we  shall  have  to  determine  anew  upon 
methods  and  means  for  the  settlement  of  disputes 
among  nations  and  peoples.  I  offer  this  as  a  solution 
of  the  problem. 

IT  is  man's  nature  to  fight.     It  is  his  merit 
to  fight  for  what  he  believes  to  be  right. 
Courage  and  bravery  are  not  achieved  by 
hiring  a  lawyer.     A  man  who  is  not  willing  to 
fight  to  the  death  for  the  right  or  for  his  own  is 
not  as  good  or  complete  a  man  as  one  who  is 
willing.     But  opinions  about  this  are  not  so 
important  as  the  fact  that  it  is  man's  nature  to 
[154] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

fight,  and  that  neither  resolution  nor  legislation 
nor  provision  to  get  over  all  kinds  of  trouble 
without  fighting  will  avail  to  meet  every 
situation. 

I  claim  that  we  cannot  change  human  nature 
in  this  respect,  and  that,  whether  we  like  the 
idea  or  not,  we  shall  always  have  wars  occa- 
sionally. At  least  we  shall  have  them  for  more 
generations  than  any  of  us  has  fingers  and  toes; 
and  that  is  long  enough.  It  is,  therefore, 
properly  our  business  so  to  modify  war  that  it 
shall  not  be  so  destructive  to  life  and  property; 
and  if  we  do  this  we  shall  have  made  a  great 
step  in  advance.  To  meet  together,  a  few  of 
us,  the  ladies  with  their  smelling-salts  and  we 
gentlemen  with  our  twinges  of  rheumatism,  and 
to  resolve  that  we  do  not  countenance  war, 
may  give  us  satisfaction,  but  it  does  not  do 
anything  else.  The  nations  will  continue  to 
bear  war  in  mind,  to  train  men  and  to  invent 
engines  and  stratagems  to  destroy  life  and 
property. 

War  is  now  carried  on  in  an  uncivilized  man- 
ner. It  is  fought  as  if  all  participants  w£re 
savages.  What  is  politely  called  strategy  is 
taking  the  enemy  unawares  and  not  giving  him 
a  fair  show.  Formerly,  when  two  men  had  a 
quarrel  they  settled  their  differences  in  the  way 
of  modern  warfare.  But  now,  whenever  one 
[155] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

man  stabs  another  in  the  back,  or  men  shoot 
one  another  at  sight  because  of  a  grievance  or 
an  agreement  that  they  are  enemies,  we  justly 
say  that  they  are  uncivilized;  and  in  the 
measure  that  they  fall  upon  one  another  like 
wild  beasts  we  declare  that  they  render  un- 
civilized the  communities  in  which  they  live. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  the  code  duello  ex- 
ists, and  the  civilization  is  of  a  high  order, 
there  is  a  court  of  honor  to  determine  among 
gentlemen  of  similar  connections  whether  the 
challenge  is  justified  or  not,  and  something  of 
the  conditions  under  which  the  fight  shall  take 
place.  Unfair  conditions  are  not  allowed,  sec- 
onds and  an  umpire  are  insisted  upon,  as  well 
as  the  presence  of  surgeons,  to  prevent  un- 
necessary loss  of  life.  A  duel  fought  under  the 
code  is  a  more  civilized  proceeding  than  an 
unrestrained  shooting.  Let  us  see  if  civiliza- 
tion might  not  invent  similar  amenities  for  a 
fight  between  nations. 

We  must  first  take  for  granted  a  material 
advance  over  our  present  civilization — enough 
to'  provide  greater  comity  among  nations. 
The  Hague  Tribunal  would  need  to  be  an 
efficient  court,  and  to  this  should  be  added 
an  international  police  force,  equipped  with 
every  implement  of  modern  warfare,  with  un- 
limited powers  of  destruction  and  stronger 
[156] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

than  the  war  force  of  any  single  nation.  Now 
it  would  not  be  reasonable  for  an  international 
police  force  to  be  intrusted  with  such  powers 
unless  the  nations  maintaining  it  were  to  have 
the  right  to  settle  their  affairs  among  them- 
selves. Otherwise,  any  nation,  royal  house, 
coterie,  junta,  or  band  which  should  gain  con- 
trol of  the  international  police,  would  have  too 
much  power  and  would  be  susceptible  to  the 
world-old  disease  of  wanting  to  own  the  earth. 
The  only  business  of  the  international  police 
would  be  to  protect  property  and  to  maintain 
order. 

The  procedure  in  case  of  war  would  then  be 
somewhat  as  follows.  Suppose  the  people  of 
Arcadia  were  jealous  of  those  of  Barcadia  for 
one  reason  or  another,  or  suppose  some  ques- 
tion of  immigration  were  to  arise  between 
them,  so  that  the  Arcadians  were  angry  with 
the  Barcadians,  and  they  should  insult  one 
another  so  insistently  that  they  could  no  longer 
live  without  fighting;  in  short,  suppose  a  con- 
dition immediately  precedent  to  war  to  exist 
between  them.  Then,  if  the  army  of  one 
country  were  to  invade  the  domain  of  the 
other,  the  international  police  would  straight- 
way interfere  on  the  ground  that  property  was 
being  destroyed  and  that  the  interest  of  all 
nations  in  the  conservation  of  property  made 
[157] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

its  destruction  a  crime.  The  army  would  have 
to  withdraw  before  the  international  police. 
But  except  as  to  maintaining  order,  the  inter- 
national police  would  have  no  further  duties. 
Now  imagine  the  feeling  of  the  Arcadians  and 
the  Barcadians!  What  anger,  what  hatred, 
what  desire  to  cut  one  another's  hearts  out! 
Then  must  they  fight — and  they  will,  in  one 
way  or  another. 

Therefore,  the  one  nation  would  challenge  the 
other  to  war  before  the  international  court  of 
honor,  and  this  challenge  would  either  be  ac- 
cepted or  declined.  If  declined,  the  court  of 
honor  would  determine  whether  the  nation 
which  refused  to  fight  was  warranted  in  so  do- 
ing, and  if  it  were  wrong  in  refusing  to  back 
up  its  own  actions  with  the  sword,  the  court 
of  honor  would  have  the  power  to  inflict  a 
penalty  in  lands  or  money.  An  unjustified 
challenge  would  also  be  thrown  out  and  a 
penalty  inflicted.  It  is  unlikely,  however, 
that  a  nation  would  refuse  to  fight  if  its 
refusal  might  give  reason  for  the  charge 
of  cowardice.  Such  a  reputation  would  be 
harmful. 

Granted,  then,  that  Arcadia  and  Barcadia 

are  resolved  on  war,  it  should  be  provided  that 

this  take   place  only  upon   the   international 

battle-field — a  level  park  specially  provided  by 

[158] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  court  of  honor,  possibly  somewhere  in 
Holland  or  Belgium.  Any  infringement  of  this 
order  would  constitute  a  breach  of  the  inter- 
national peace,  to  be  stopped  immediately  by 
the  international  police.  Each  nation  would 
then  send  five  thousand  of  its  picked  men, 
trained  in  swordsmanship.  Less  than  five 
thousand  would  hardly  constitute  a  national 
body  of  men,  and  luck  would  play  too  great  a 
part  with  a  smaller  number.  Dynamite,  ex- 
plosives of  every  kind,  guns,  pistols,  or,  in 
short,  any  weapon  or  agency  of  offense  or  de- 
fense, excepting  the  sword,  would  be  pro- 
hibited. The  purpose  is  to  civilize  warfare 
by  giving  an  equal  chance  to  each  side. 

Firearms,  as  now  constructed,  with  pro- 
jectiles that  penetrate  a  number  of  men,  render 
a  battle  fought  with  them  a  matter  of  advan- 
tage and  chance,  and  it  would  not  be  right  to 
leave  a  nation's  honor  to  chance.  It  should  be 
determined  by  the  valor  of  her  sons.  Now 
before  the  opposing  armies  were  drawn  up  on 
the  battle-field,  the  court  of  honor  would  de- 
termine the  outcome  of  the  war  in  the  event 
of  either  winning.  The  contentions  of  the  op- 
posing nations,  which  they  refuse  to  solve  in 
court  and  which  are  to  be  settled  by  the 
sword,  would  be  fully  considered  and  the  out- 
come determined,  with  one  result  if  the 
[159] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Arcadians  win,  and  the  other  if  victory  is  to 
the  Barcadians. 

Then,  with  the  preliminaries  arranged  and 
the  armies  ready,  at  the  word  of  the  umpire  the 
two  opposing  forces,  armed  with  swords  and 
stripped  to  waist,  attack  each  other.  They 
strike,  thrust,  disembowel,  and  fight  to  kill. 
There  is  neither  truce  nor  pause  until  one  side 
or  the  other  is  driven  from  the  field,  lies  down, 
or  surrenders.  In  respect  to  those  who  do  the 
actual  fighting,  war  would  be  more  terrible 
than  it  is  now.  Nothing  would  count  but 
swordsmanship  and  courage.  Social  distinc- 
tions between  officers  and  common  soldiers 
would  disappear.  Snobbery  would  meet  its 
death-blow.  And  no  property  would  be  de- 
stroyed; the  savings  of  mankind,  humanity's 
collective  goods,  would  be  conserved. 

Neither  should  we  be  compelled  to  give  up 
our  heroes,  under  this  beneficent  civilization  of 
warfare.  The  war  spirit  which  we  have  in  us 
so  long  as  we  are  young  would  not  be  choked 
or  suppressed,  with  the  hazard  of  setting  loose 
more  dangerous  passions.  It  would  be  a  great 
honor  to  be  counted  among  a  nation's  war- 
riors, and  every  town  and  village  would  have 
its  young  men  training  in  athletics  to  qualify. 
In  the  event  of  war,  every  man  that  died  would 
be  a  hero,  and  the  incentive  to  the  native  town 
[1601 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

of  each  hero  to  build  a  beautiful  monument  to 
him  alone  would  be  as  great  as  if  there  were 
hundreds  of  names  to  be  inscribed  upon  the 
memorial. 

Training  and  practising  among  the  young 
men  would  encourage  athletics  and  tem- 
perate living.  And  those  selected  might  well 
expect  to  find  favor  in  the  sight  of  young 
women — a  fact  which  by  general  agreement 
seems  to  make  life  more  attractive. 

In  short,  by  the  introduction  of  the  inter- 
national code  duello,  war  would  cease  to  cause 
the  destruction  of  property;  the  cost  of  stand- 
ing armies  and  navies  would,  in  time,  dis- 
appear, with  the  exception  of  the  quota  of  each 
nation  to  support  the  international  police; 
human  nature  would  not  be  perverted  by  the 
inhibition  of  one  of  the  normal  instincts  of 
man — namely,  the  fighting  instinct;  and  war, 
which  cannot  be  averted,  would  involve  more 
valor  and  fewer  deaths.  It  would  be  a  step  in 
advance. 

To  those  to  whom  the  word  duel  is  offensive  it 
may  be  said  that  to  countenance  duels  between 
nations  does  not  warrant  duels  between  men. 
The  standards  are  different.  Modern  warfare, 
with  its  strategy,  its  mines,  and  its  sneaking 
murder,  would  not  be  countenanced  between 
individuals  anywhere  on  earth.  Nevertheless, 
[161] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

despite  the  protestations  of  the  peace  societies, 
we  are  all  of  us  preparing  to  do  this  same  thing 
in  a  wholesale  way — to  prosecute  "modern 
warfare"  between  nations.  Why  not  take  a 
step  in  advance  and  provide  that  our  fighting 
be  ordered  so  that  it  shall  be  fair,  and  that 
true  courage  and  valor  may  prevail? 


JUST    A    TRAMP 

kBOUT  twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  told 
an  Englishman  had  arrived  with  letters 
from  headquarters  in  London.  I  was 
requested  to  put  him  to  work  in  the  office  and 
to  look  after  him. 

He  was  a  little  under  thirty  years  old,  very 
diffident,  and  he  had  an  odd  way  of  bringing 
his  knees  together  under  the  slightest  provo- 
cation of  embarrassment.  He  had  studied 
divinity  and  taken  deacon's  orders,  after  which 
he  concluded  that  he  was  not  designed  for  the 
cloth;  then  he  taught  for  several  years  in  a 
school  for  boys  in  Ireland.  He  was  marvel- 
ously  learned  in  the  humanities  and  he  remem- 
bered everything. 

In  those  days  there  was  a  delightful  little 
woman  who  wrote  novels  in  great  number 
about  gentle  and  lovely  ladies  and  dashing 
young  men  who  rescued  them  from  distress,  all 
marrying  with  diligence  on  the  third  page  pre- 
ceding the  last  word  of  each  of  the  twenty  or 
thirty-odd  volumes.  She  lived  near  the  school 
and  my  Englishman  made  a  wager  with  her 
[163] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

that  he  could  write  a  novel  that  would  be  taken 
for  hers  by  her  publishers  and  the  public.  The 
result  was  a  signal  victory  for  him;  his  novel 
was  one  of  the  most  popular  of  a  series  that 
would  have  made  her  whose  name  he  used  rich, 
if  there  had  been  any  international  copyright 
in  those  days.  Many  a  matron  of  to-day  harks 
back  to  her  girlhood  and  the  adventures  of 
Mrs.  Geoffrey  with  a  touch  of  emotion  and 
the  glint  of  a  tear. 

Why  he  came  to  America  was  never  quite 
clear  to  me.  I  remember  a  rumor  of  an  alliance 
broken  between  him  and  a  half-sister  of  the 
man  at  headquarters — but  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing about  it. 

He  certainly  was  not  a  business  man,  what- 
ever he  may  have  aspired  to  be  when  he  came 
to  America.  He  wrote  a  good  hand  and  did 
as  he  was  told,  but  that  was  all.  He  was  not 
impressed  with  the  most  ponderous  captains 
of  industry,  of  finance,  or  of  trade.  He  was 
respectful  but  not  reverent  to  the  high  priests 
of  the  temple  of  wealth.  He  could  not  even  tell 
them  apart  when  they  came  in,  sometimes 
separately  and  sometimes  together,  to  attend 
meetings  and  conferences.  The  rest  of  us 
could  see  them  all  puffed  out  with  potentiali- 
ties of  power.  Not  so  this  Englishman.  He 
referred  to  them  simply  as  "those  Johnnies" 
[164] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

— think  of  that!  Successful  men  who  had 
achieved  the  very  pinnacle;  presidents  and 
vice-presidents  of  corporations  of  multiplied 
millions,  and  he  not  even  interested  in  them! 
But  so  it  was.  He  was  not  provident;  if  he 
could  induce  the  cashier  to  advance  him  a  few 
dollars  before  pay-day,  he  would  celebrate  with 
the  proceeds — and  he  was  a  good  judge  of  food 
and  wine. 

He  drifted  out  of  business  as  modestly  as 
he  had  drifted  into  it,  and  he  became  a  library 
grub.  He  had  a  remarkable  facility  for  finding 
things  in  print,  and  many  books  have  been 
written  by  authors  of  greater  business  acumen 
than  he  out  of  the  material  he  gathered  for 
them.  He  could  write  almost  anything — 
verses,  some  real  poetry,  essays;  he  wrote  a 
very  scholarly  book  which  he  dedicated  to  me; 
but  that  was  the  only  work  published  in  his 
name. 

He  went  to  Washington,  and  there  for  a  while 
made  a  living  preparing  and  writing  speeches 
for  Congressmen.  During  another  period,  off 
and  on  for  a  few  years,  he  acted  as  an  assistant 
to  the  editor  of  an  encyclopedia,  and  in  this 
work  he  was  happy  because  his  chief  under- 
stood him.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  earned  over  ten 
or  twelve  dollars  a  week;  this  seemed  good 
pay  to  him,  and  of  slight  importance,  anyway. 

12  1165] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

When  warm  weather  came  about  he  would 
take  to  the  road.  He  wandered  alone,  needed 
but  little,  and  a  bed  in  a  hayloft,  or  on  a  stack 
of  that  new-mown,  was  his  delight.  "I  tell 
you,  old  fellow,"  he  said  once,  "when  the  time 
comes  for  me  to  lay  me  down  under  a  green- 
wood tree  and  offer  up  my  ghost,  I  shall  be 
able  to  whisper  into  the  ear  of  the  veiled 
messenger,  'At  your  service,  Mr.  Angel,  for  I 
have  surely  had  my  share  in  the  joy  of  living!" 
And  I  am  sure  he  never  did  an  unkindness  to 
any  one. 

His  utter  lack  of  business  sense  often  put 
him  in  want.  He  could  work  and  was  always 
willing  to  work — except  in  the  spring — but  he 
had  no  knowledge  of  the  art  of  inducing  people 
to  employ  him.  He  could  not  originate  any- 
thing that  required  calculation,  and  responsi- 
bility distressed  him.  Then,  as  time  wore  on, 
there  was  the  need  of  more  and  more  gin,  which 
made  him  look  shabby.  Disease  began  to 
consume  him,  too,  but  this  had  its  fortunate 
side  because  his  was  no  ordinary  malady  such 
as  is  developed  in  the  common  tramp;  his 
was  a  rare  and  interesting  case  and  it  made 
him  welcome  in  the  charity  hospital  for  a 
long  time. 

When  he  came  out  he  was  full  of  ideas, 
which,  I  regret  to  say,  did  not  keep  him  from 
[166] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

his  favorite  tipple.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  any 
influence  with  the  authorities  of  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art;  he  said  he  had  been 
thinking  things  over  and  it  had  come  upon 
him  like  an  inspiration;  he  was  just  the  man 
to  be  one  of  the  guards  to  guard  the  treasures! 
He  would  not  mind  wearing  the  uniform  in  the 
least,  and  with  all  the  information  that  he  had 
in  the  back  of  his  head  he  could  help  people  a 
great  deal;  he  was  sure  he  could.  But  what 
with  the  smell  of  gin  and  the  red  nose  and  the 
gray  hair  and  shuffling  gait — no,  it  would  not 
do!  Sometimes  he  would  visit  me  and  occa- 
sionally he  would  write,  but  this  only  under 
pressure  of  sore  need.  Fred  helped  him  out 
occasionally,  and  so  did  Howard,  and  I  suppose 
other  friends  did  the  same.  We  could  have 
helped  him  more  if  he  had  called  upon  us 
oftener.  Many  years  had  passed  by  this  tune, 
and,  you  see,  he  was  down  and  out. 

A  couple  of  weeks  ago  he  came  to  see  me  for 
the  last  time.  He  wanted  to  know  what  I 
thought  of  writing  a  letter  to  Mary;  she  might, 
he  thought,  have  influence  with  people  to  get 
him  something  to  do,  and  he  admitted  that  he 
was  about  on  his  last  legs.  I  told  him  I  could 
not  answer  the  question;  that  'I  did  not 
know  enough  to  answer  it.  Now  this  was  the 
wrong  thing  to  say,  because  he  wanted  some- 
[167] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

body  to  help  him  make  up  his  mind.  So  I 
am  convinced  that  he  did  not  write  to  Mary. 
Last  night  they  found  him  dead  in  bed  in  a 
cheap  lodging-house.  There  was  no  greenwood 
tree  and  even  the  veiled  messenger  was  in  a 
hurry. 

Open  the  gate,  Saint  Peter!     Open  the  gate! 
There  is  a  gentleman  at  hand  who  has  fulfilled  the 
beatitudes.     He  awaits  your  pleasure. 


WOMAN'S    HONOR 

SUPPOSE  we  men  had  formerly  been  the 
property  of  our  wives,  and  suppose 
we  were  still  widely  regarded  as  or- 
namental and  delightful,  but  not  to  be  taken 
seriously.  Suppose  we  arrayed  ourselves  as 
did  the  courtiers  at  the  time  of  Charles  the 
Second  and  were  engaged  in  occupations 
similar  to  theirs.  And  suppose  we  still  wore 
corsets  and  tight  skirts  and  high  French  heels 
and  long  hair.  The  mere  thought  of  a  dozen 
of  us  sitting  about  a  table,  arrayed  and  shirred 
up  as  women  are,  leads  inevitably  to  the  con- 
clusion that  within  an  hour  we  should  be  in- 
volved in  a  riot.  Just  why  we  should  punch 
one  another's  heads  we  may  not  be  able  to  tell, 
but  it  is  at  least  probable. 

Suppose  that  the  literature  of  no  more  than 
fifty  years  ago  referred  to  us  constantly  as 
frail  and  delicate  creatures,  that  the  traditions 
which  favored  us  most  were  those  exalting  our 
loyalty  and  faithfulness  to  the  wives  that 
possessed  us,  and  that  it  were  urged  upon  every 
[169] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

man  always  to  lean  upon  his  wife  because  she 
will  guard  and  defend  him.  Or  suppose  our 
occupations  were  restricted  to  those  employ- 
ments which  have  heretofore  been  available 
to  women — in  any  of  these  events  our  vision 
might  be  rather  narrow  and  our  sense  of  honor 
might  be  a  little  attenuated. 

Now,  far  be  it  from  me  to  decry  the  songs 
and  poems  and  beatitudes  of  the  charm  of 
women  and  all  the  hurrahs  of  language  that 
admiration  inspires.  It  is  a  joy  to  sing  them 
and  a  delight  to  write  them.  And  of  love  in 
its  great  and  deep  meaning  we  are  speaking 
not  at  all.  That  abides  as  a  constant  bene- 
diction upon  humanity,  and  is  greater  than 
knowledge  or  science  or  wisdom.  Of  all  the 
things  the  woman-soul  tenders  for  it  and  of  her 
sacrifices,  and  of  all  the  things  the  man-soul 
offers  for  it  and  of  his  sacrifices,  we  need  not 
even  whisper.  Throughout  the  ages  women 
have  held  faithfully  to  the  gospel  of  love  and 
have  taught  it  by  example,  in  spite  of  cruelty 
and  scorn.  But  concerning  honor,  and  what 
is  honor's  due,  the  advice  to  women  that  one 
finds  in  literature  seems  so  generally  based 
upon  the  presumption  that  they  are  of  a  sort 
with  defective  or  delinquent  children  that  a 
readjustment  of  dogma  seems  timely. 

Of  course,  there  is  Otto  Weininger's  theory 
[170] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

that  the  absolute  female  is  merely  an  autom- 
aton of  flesh  and  blood,  without  judgment  or 
capacity,  and  that  whatever  merit  of  intel- 
ligence a  woman  may  have  is  due  to  the  modi- 
cum of  male  that  is  inherent  in  her.  Con- 
versely the  absolute  male  is  the  Uebermensch 
who  has  all  the  gifts  of  mind  and  soul.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  he  further 
maintained  that  there  is  no  absolute  male  or 
absolute  female  known.  The  theory  squares 
very  well  with  a  great  deal  that  may  be  found 
in  literature,  and  even  in  current  opinion.  It 
operates  well  as  a  working  hypothesis  in  some 
families;  but  the  very  opposite  view,  that  all 
intelligence  emanates  from  the  female  and  that 
the  male  is  not  to  be  relied  upon  in  any  way, 
works  equally  well  in  others.  Instances  of 
the  successful  operation  of  both  hypotheses  are 
of  such  frequent  occurrence,  and  are  so  well 
known  to  all  of  us,  that  it  would  require  the 
faith  of  a  closed  mind  to  assume  either  of  them 
to  be  true. 

Every  reason  possible  has  been  given  to 
women  to  believe  themselves  fools,  and  there 
are  many  who  follow  the  arguments.  In  like 
manner,  when  a  majority  of  men  were  serfs 
they  learned  that  they  should  look  to  their  lord 
in  all  things;  and  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  in 
consequence  of  this  many  of  them  did;  that 
[171] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

they  became  dependent  in  spirit  and  that  their 
sense  of  honor  was  rudimentary. 

Without  attempting  to  define  honor,  we 
know  that  a  glorified  and  impassioned  loyalty 
to  what  one  believes  to  be  right  is  included 
in  the  expression.  It  also  seems  to  involve 
character,  and  this  has  always  been  a  possession 
of  both  men  and  women.  From  a  fine,  strong 
character  we  may  expect  honor  irrespective 
of  sex  or  condition.  For  this  reason  it  would 
hardly  appear  that  the  whole  ground  is  covered 
by  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  honor  as 
a  group  instinct.  Character  is  not  a  group 
instinct;  it  is,  one  might  almost  say,  a  struct- 
ural quality;  and  it  is  so  closely  allied  to  hon- 
or that  honor,  like  character,  would  seem  to 
be  in  part  a  matter  of  breeding. 

Of  course,  in  discussing  Woman's  Honor  we 
may  speedily  become  so  tangled  up  that,  as 
somebody  has  said,  our  only  safety  will  lie  in 
statistics;  but  in  a  big  way  it  does  not  appear 
that  honor  is  a  matter  of  sex.  It  seems,  at 
least  to  the  writer,  to  be  rather  a  matter  of 
character.  Now  it  may  be  that  women  have 
less  character  than  men,  but  it  would  hardly 
be  fair  to  assert  it  until  some  statistician  has 
computed  the  exact  average  of  all  the  women 
and  all  the  men  living  at  one  time. 

[172] 


SAUL  OF  TARSUS 

THIS  essay  is  not  written  for  good  church- 
nen,  whether  they  be  of  one  denomina- 
tion or  another.  If  you  go  to  church 
with  diligence,  and  like  it,  and  believe  in  the 
organization  as  it  is,  I  can  see  no  profit  for  you 
in  these  comments,  for  they  are  likely  either  to 
make  you  angry  or  to  make  you  pity  my  ig- 
norance. If  you  insist  upon  reading  it,  I  com- 
mend to  you  the  latter  alternative,  because, 
if  you  grow  angry,  while  it  may  do  me  no  harm, 
it  is  very  like  to  injure  you.  And  it  would  be 
unchristian.  This  is  written  by  one  who  has 
great  reverence  and  love  for  the  life  and  words 
of  Jesus,  but  to  whom  Christian  dogma,  as 
presented  in  the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed,  or 
with  all  the  particulars  and  specifications  of 
the  Athanasian  Creed,  is  unbelievable.  It  is 
designed  for  the  unelect  by  one  of  themselves, 
yet  in  the  belief  that,  if  the  world  were  to 
follow  the  advice  of  Jesus,  the  Kingdom  of 
God  would  be  at  hand. 

We  have  heard  and  read  many  discussions 
about  how  one  should  go  to  church,  whether 
[173] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

he  should  go  or  not,  what  the  trouble  is  with  the 
churches,  and  why  people  stay  away  from 
them.  One  claims  that  the  churches  are  too 
orthodox,  while  another  holds  that  if  rigid  or- 
thodoxy be  maintained  the  whole  world  will 
in  time  become  wise  and  enlightened,  and 
we  shall  all  become  Christians  of  one  sort  or 
another. 

In  all  of  these  discussions  I  think  we  have 
failed  to  determine  the  crux  of  orthodoxy, 
and  I  shall  make  bold  to  suggest  that  this  is 
Saul  of  Tarsus  whom  we  know  as  Paul.  The 
orthodox  are  followers  of  Paul;  the  unorthodox 
are  not.  And  I  shall  go  farther  than  this 
and  say  that  it  is  Paul  who  keeps  us  apart, 
and  who  is  the  author  of  what  many  earnest 
Christians  are  seeking  to  rid  themselves  to-day. 

We  must  remember  that  Jesus  preached  a 
very  simple  gospel,  which  any  one  can  under- 
stand. The  substance  of  it  is  that  we  must 
keep  love  in  our  hearts,  that  anger  and  hatred 
and  malice  and  revenge  are  all  danger  signals  of 
that  which  is  not  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  So 
long  as  we  keep  love  in  our  hearts  we  cannot  go 
entirely  astray,  no  matter  what  happens  to  us. 
The  Jews,  among  whom  He  lived,  were  very 
like  the  orthodox  Christians  of  our  day;  they 
had  traditions  and  rites,  and  rules  and  regula- 
tions determined  by  priests  and  elders  that 
[174] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

offered  a  whole  series  of  substitutes  for  right- 
eousness. They  were  always  making  definitions 
and  determining  what  was  right  and  what 
was  wrong,  according  to  law.  They  did  not 
look  ahead,  except  for  more  power;  they 
looked  backward,  and  their  business  was  to 
conserve  the  great  treasures  of  wisdom  that 
had  been  handed  down  to  them  by  Moses  and 
the  prophets;  and  their  noblest  work  was  to 
interpret  them.  They  were  the  great  classi- 
cists of  their  day  and  generation. 

What  happened  to  Jesus  when  He  went  off 
into  the  wilderness  we  do  not  know,  but  He 
seems  to  have  come  back  with  the  idea  that  as 
for  the  tradition  among  the  Jews  that  some 
one  should  arise  among  them  or  come  to  them 
with  a  message  that  should  establish  the  King- 
dom of  God,  He  had  that  message.  It  was  a 
very  simple  one  of  love  and  forgiveness.  He 
clung  to  it  all  through  His  life.  He  strove  to 
make  those  who  believed  in  it  a  colony  so 
inspired  by  love  and  good-fellowship  that  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  would  see  the  folly  of 
pride  and  self-seeking  and  join  in  a  real  King- 
dom of  God,  Jews  and  Gentiles  all.  This  was 
His  ideal — very  simple,  very  beautiful,  and  yet 
very  difficult  of  attainment.  In  all  the  centu- 
ries that  have  passed  since  then,  no  thought  so 
lovely  has  been  given  to  us.  He  would  define 
[175] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

nothing,  except  His  one  gospel  of  love.  Judges, 
lawyers,  pettifoggers,  priests,  elders — all  sorts 
of  people  tried  to  induce  Him  to  commit  Him- 
self on  one  question  or  another,  but  they  never 
succeeded.  He  would  not  dogmatize.  If  you 
have  love  in  your  heart,  He  held  that  you  may 
be  trusted  to  find  answers  to  questions  of  con- 
duct as  they  arise;  without  it  neither  laws  nor 
rules  can  guide  you. 

Keeping  the  Sabbath,  making  offerings  and 
sacrifices  as  prescribed,  and  all  the  whole  list 
of  rules  and  laws  were  as  nothing  without  this 
one  enlivening  gospel  of  love.  The  only  prej- 
udice He  appeared  to  have  was  against  wealth, 
and  it  would  seem  that  this  was  rather  against 
the  arrogance  of  wealth  than  a  desire  to 
inventory  men's  goods  and  fix  a  minimum. 
The  Romans  of  His  day  were  in  some  respects 
like  the  French  under  Napoleon,  or  the  English 
people  of  forty  years  ago,  or  the  Americans 
of  the  United  States  right  after  the  Spanish 
War,  or  like  the  Germans  just  before  the  pres- 
ent war ;  a  people  fundamentally  good,  but  mad- 
dened by  success  and  boastful  almost  beyond 
endurance.  Wealth  threw  men  out  of  balance 
then  as  it  does  now,  if  they  are  not  equipped  to 
bear  the  strain;  and  it  probably  made  many 
just  such  useless  wastrels  of  women  as  it  does 
to-day.  It  may  be  that  we  should  gain  wis- 
[176] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

dom  by  following  Him  in  this  respect,  and  it 
surely  would  do  us  no  harm  to  relax  somewhat 
in  our  chase  after  wealth  and  our  love  for  it. 
A  certain  young  man  was  told  to  sell  all  that 
he  had  and  give  the  proceeds  to  the  poor, 
probably  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons.  But 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  was  another  rich  man, 
and  for  aught  we  know  he  kept  his  fortune  all 
his  life,  with  no  harm  to  himself  and  to  the 
good  of  his  fellows.  At  all  events,  it  is  not 
of  record  that  he  was  instructed  to  dispose  of 
it.  Jesus  was  not  an  economist,  He  did  not 
claim  to  be  one,  and  He  would  not  be  drawn 
into  questions  of  economics  or  politics.  He 
had  a  philosophy  of  life  which  was  all-sufficient 
and  basic;  granted  that  in  full  operation,  He 
held  that  humanity  would  be  intelligent  enough 
to  meet  whatever  economic  problems  might 
arise.  He  had  no  dogma  save  love,  and  real, 
hearty  good-fellowship. 

It  also  appears  that  He  thought  the  world 
was  coming  straightway  to  an  end;  but  we 
must  remember  that  the  Gospels  have  been 
made  up  and  copied  and  rewritten  and  modified 
to  meet  the  views  of  the  dogmatists  that  came 
after  Him.  And  whether  or  not  He  had  such 
faith  in  the  gospel  of  love  that  He  believed  the 
world  would  adopt  it  sooner  than  now  seems 
possible  with  our  many  degenerates  of  mis- 
[177] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

breeding,  of  wealth,  of  industry,  and  of  igno- 
rance, it  is  really  we  who  are  doing  the  guessing; 
He  gave  no  dates.  He  knew  that  when  this 
spirit  of  love  and  sympathy  shall  have  spread 
itself  over  the  earth,  then  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  will  be  at  hand;  and  it  looks  to  me  as 
though  He  had  this  in  mind  rather  than  the 
trumpeting,  thunderclapping,  bone-jumping 
Resurrection  Day  of  orthodoxy.  Granted  a 
reign  of  love  and  sympathy  and  good-fellowship 
over  all  the  world,  and  we  know  that  the  spirit 
of  Christ  will  be  with  us  and  animate  us 
whether  we  look  at  it  as  mystics  or  as  mechan- 
istic biologists.  I  postulate  that  there  is  no 
other  dogma  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 

Now  enters  Paul.  We  meet  him  first  as  a 
dogmatist,  and  a  dogmatist  he  always  re- 
mained. He  appeared  as  an  organizer  of 
orthodox  Jews,  and  he  spent  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  organizing  and  establishing  dogma 
in  Christianity.  He  seems  to  have  overesti- 
mated the  change  that  came  over  him  on  his 
conversion,  for  his  was  the  same  energetic, 
impatient,  and  domineering  personality  after- 
ward that  it  was  before.  He  was  the  very 
opposite  of  Him  he  called  his  master.  He  had  a 
remarkable  gift  of  expression;  as  a  maker  of 
phrases  he  was  unsurpassed;  but  while  he  was 
scrupulous  as  to  his  logic,  he  was  far  less 
[178] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

admirable  in  his  choice  of  premises.  Indeed, 
he  was  obsessed  by  logic.  Now  logic,  without 
an  effective  conscience  back  of  it,  or  even 
without  a  generous  knowledge  of  its  limita- 
tions, is  the  father  of  lies.  The  logician  who  is 
careless  about  the  basis  of  his  reasoning  main- 
tains a  laboratory  of  error.  The  shrewd  law- 
yer builds  up  injustice  by  a  false  "theory 
of  the  case,"  as  he  calls  it,  and  if  he  is  astute 
enough  he  makes  away  with  it.  We  approach 
the  truth  by  trying  out  the  postulates  upon 
which  the  conclusions  of  our  day  are  built, 
and  discarding  them  when  we  find  them  false. 
Men  of  science  have  learned  the  danger  of 
letting  logic  run  away  with  them  before  they 
know  their  facts.  Formerly  it  was  the  fashion 
among  them  to  work  out  a  theory  for  every 
phenomenon  and  then  proceed  as  though  each 
new  theory  were  a  fact.  They  learned  this 
art  from  Paul.  To-day  they  are  more  modest; 
criticism  is  invited,  whether  based  on  history 
or  experiment. 

I  repeat,  Paul  was  obsessed  by  logic.  Every- 
thing had  to  be  buttoned  up,  to  be  made 
presentable  and  finished.  He  had  the  passion 
of  a  Prussian  Feldwebel  for  system  and  or- 
der, or  of  the  conscientious  housekeeper  who 
throws  notes  and  manuscripts  into  the  fire 
rather  than  leave  a  room  untidy.  Paul  had  to 
[179] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

work  out  a  theory,  a  chain  of  reasoning  for 
everything,  and  he  imposed  his  findings  upon 
his  followers.  If  he  could  not  get  the  points  of 
history — current  and  mythological — which  he 
desired  to  present  as  the  ground  of  his  argu- 
ment into  a  workable  relation,  he  would  guess 
out  a  law  for  the  situation,  and  then  proceed  to 
argue  in  favor  of  his  law.  And  in  argument 
he  was  irresistible;  he  could  talk  anybody 
down.  From  statements  made  in  The  Acts 
it  appears  that  he  talked  constantly. 

On  his  first  appearance  at  the  stoning  of 
Stephen  the  apostles  feared  him  greatly,  and 
when  he  finally  appeared  before  them  it  is 
doubtful  if  they  would  have  accepted  him 
as  one  of  their  number  if  Barnabas  had  not 
pleaded  for  him.  And  he  must  have  been 
difficult  to  get  along  with.  They  retained 
him  among  them  for  a  year  before  they  let 
him  go  out  to  preach,  which  was  his  great 
desire,  and  even  then  they  sent  him  off  to  the 
Gentiles  rather  than  have  him  work  among 
their  own  people.  He  had  already  worked  out 
a  series  of  theories  to  satisfy  his  craving  for 
logic,  and  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  the 
apostles  had  hesitated  to  allow  the  gospel  of 
love  which  they  had  been  teaching  to  become 
entangled  in  a  complicated  code  of  dogma  and 
rules  of  Paul's  invention.  It  was  Paul  who 
[180] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

developed  the  theory  that  the  God  of  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  after  creating  the  world 
in  six  days  and  putting  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  and  observing  Adam's  dis- 
obedience and  putting  all  the  children  of  the 
earth  under  the  ban  of  his  curse,  has  then 
repented  of  his  act  and  made  a  sacrifice  of 
Jesus  so  that  the  curse  might  be  lifted.  Then 
Paul  invented  justification  by  faith,  and  so 
justification  by  faith  took  the  place  of  love 
and  he  had  a  workable  argument,  sound  in 
logic,  beginning  with  the  Garden  of  Eden  and 
ending  in  the  escape  of  his  followers  from  hell- 
fire.  Stand  up  and  say  you  believe,  and  you 
are  saved;  fail  in  this  opportunity,  and  you 
shall  go  to  hell.  That  was  an  easy  doctrine 
with  which  to  impress  the  crowd  and  bring 
them  into  the  organization  under  fear.  I  do 
not  think  Jesus  ever  taught  it.  I  do  not 
believe  He  ever  thought  of  it  as  a  way  to 
establish  what  He  called  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
On  the  other  hand,  how  could  Paul  imagine 
the  Kingdom  of  God  as  coming  about  through 
sympathy  and  good-fellowship?  He  was  ap- 
parently without  good-fellowship,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  he  was  a  man  of  sympathy.  He 
was  too  busy  "fighting  the  good  fight"  to 
engage  in  sympathy.  Paul's  problem  was  not  a 
problem  of  love,  although  this  was  important, 
13  [  181  ] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

because  Jesus  had  so  constantly  taught  it; 
Paul's  problem  was  one  of  organization.  He 
wrote  wonderful  phrases  about  love,  but  in 
practice  it  had  to  give  way  to  system  and 
order.  And  his  organization  proceeded  with 
great  success.  As  soon  as  he  obtained  a  good 
start  at  his  work  the  other  apostles  drop  out 
from  the  pages  of  the  record.  They  could  not 
get  along  with  him;  Barnabas  was  the  first  to 
befriend  him  and  the  first  to  leave  him. 
Mark  could  not  work  with  him,  and  Peter 
was  entirely  out  of  accord  with  him. 

The  working  of  Paul's  mind  is  shown  in  a 
number  of  instances.  Thus  he  started  with 
his  theory  of  the  church  worked  out  as  a 
Jewish  institution,  but  the  rite  of  circumcision 
was  a  hindrance  to  him  in  the  organization  of 
his  establishments.  So  he  returned  early  in 
his  career  to  Peter  for  instruction.  Now 
Peter,  who  is  said  to  have  been  of  conservative 
disposition,  but  who  appears,  through  associa- 
tion with  Jesus,  to  have  gathered  unto  himself 
some  of  His  loveliness  of  nature,  assured  him 
that  the  gospel  of  Jesus  was  not  circumcision 
or  any  other  rite,  but  that  it  was  rather  of  the 
heart.  As  soon  as  Paul  learned  that  cir- 
cumcision was  not  essential  he  accepted  bap- 
tism for  it.  He  had  to  have  a  rule  and  a  rite, 
so  baptism  was  adopted.  In  consequence  of  his 
[1821 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

philosophy,  baptism  became  essential  to  sal- 
vation. Imagine  Jesus  saying,  "Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  me — after  they  have 
been  baptized"! 

The  problem  of  sex  bothered  Paul,  and  he 
set  forth  his  dogma  that  women  are  a  tempta- 
tion and  a  danger  and  therefore  they  should 
be  kept  in  the  house.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
influence,  and  his  restrictions  upon  women 
have  smothered  their  minds  for  many  cen- 
turies. 

When  he  set  out  on  his  missionary  journeys 
it  was  his  habit,  on  his  arrival  in  a  town,  to 
seek  first  the  synagogue,  and  by  virtue  of  his 
credentials  as  a  preacher  to  get  opportunity  to 
address  the  Jewish  congregation.  If  they 
agreed  with  him  and  followed  him,  well  and 
good;  if  not — the  records  do  not  show  what 
happened,  but  it  is  evident  that  there  was 
trouble.  When  he  returned  to  Jerusalem, 
before  his  arrest,  it  appears  that  he  had  already 
organized  his  churches  into  an  anti-Jewish 
institute.  I  cannot  gather  any  other  con- 
clusion from  the  record.  Now  the  Jews  of  his 
day  were  human,  just  as  they  are  to-day. 
Jesus  got  along  with  them  and  loved  them. 
So  did  Peter  and  James  and  John  and  all  the 
other  apostles.  Paul  could  not.  He  had 
doctrines  which  the  others  did  not  teach,  and 
[183] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

it  appears  to  me  as  though  the  doctrinaires  and 
teachers  of  dogma  had  been  blaming  the  Jews 
for  Paul's  faults.  Paul  is  never  blamed,  and 
his  quarrelsome  disposition,  his  testy  temper, 
and  his  boastfulness  over  what  he  had  to  endure 
from  those  that  did  not  agree  with  him  are 
referred  to  as  his  grand  humanity.  His  habit 
of  speech  was  not  gentle,  and  it  is  evident  that 
his  expressions  to  the  unpersuaded  Jews  were 
neither  friendly  nor  free  from  insult.  Of 
course  the  good  people  would  resent  this. 
Many  of  us  are  slow  to  grasp  a  new  idea;  and 
Paul  preached  to  them,  instead  of  the  simple 
gospel  of  love  which  Jesus  taught,  a  new 
Jewish  code,  made  up  largely  of  rules  and  de- 
ductions of  his  own  invention.  The  Jewish  con- 
gregations felt  that  they  had  more  authority 
for  the  laws  inscribed  on  their  scrolls  than  for 
the  doctrines  of  Paul,  and  they  did  what  any 
Christian  Church  would  do  to-day  if  any  one 
were  to  come  to  them  as  Paul  went  to  the 
synagogues.  They  plainly  told  him  to  clear 
out.  Then  Paul,  being  known  as  a  Christian, 
could  not  stone  them  to  death  as  had  been 
done  to  Stephen  because  he  did  not  agree. 
So  he  did  something  far  worse  than  throwing 
stones  at  them;  he  complained  that  the  Jews 
were  persecuting  him,  and  by  the  persuasive- 
ness of  his  talk  and  the  volume  of  it  he  inflamed 
[184] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  people  against  the  Jews.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  the  persecution  of  the  Jews, 
and  has  continued  to  this  day,  remaining  one 
of  the  most  unkind  and  unchristian  features  of 
Christian  society.  There  is  bitter  cruelty  in 
it.  And  the  higher  we  go  where  the  graces  of 
life  abide  in  Christian  society  the  more  subtle 
is  this  attitude  of  ungraciousness  likely  to  be 
toward  the  Jews.  Granted  that  Christianity 
might  have  prevailed  without  Paul,  then  we 
should  all  have  been  Jews  and  the  Jews  would 
have  been  different.  They  would  not  have 
been  thrown  into  ghettoes  in  medieval  days 
nor  put  under  a  social  ban  now  by  inhibitions 
and  prohibitions  at  the  gates  of  the  most 
delectable  social  achievements.  This  attitude 
of  mind  comes  with  the  increase  of  authority 
in  the  Church.  Jesus  leaned  the  other  way. 
Paul  started  it. 

Another  interesting  light  on  the  influence  of 
Paul  is  found  in  the  Reformation.  Granted 
all  the  evils  claimed  for  the  Catholics  by  the 
Protestants  and  the  integrity  of  all  of  Luther's 
purposes — and  what  happened?  Luther  sought 
the  Scriptures  for  his  inspiration,  but  it  is  clear 
that  he  dwelt  rather  upon  The  Acts  and  The 
Epistles  than  on  the  gospel  of  Jesus — and  so 
the  fight  began.  Of  Luther's  followers,  Calvin 
is  a  perfect  example  of  one  who  sought  the 
[185] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

Scriptures  for  law  according  to  Paul,  and  with 
no  consideration  for  the  Golden  Rule.  The 
result  was  his  great  and  almost  successful 
effort  to  establish  a  Presbyterian  political 
machine  in  Geneva;  and  while  this  sets  us  a 
shining  example  of  industry,  perseverance, 
singleness  of  purpose,  and  that  kind  of  grim 
resolution  that  sometimes  passes  for  piety, 
it  does  not  appeal  to  the  heart.  If  we  were 
to  order  our  lives  according  to  Calvin's  ex- 
ample we  should  abide  without  love  or  good- 
fellowship  and  be  lucky  if  we  died  of  old 
age  at  twenty.  With  all  his  faults,  Paul  was 
better  than  Calvin.  He  had  a  heart.  When 
he  saw  how  Stephen  died  as  a  real  hero, 
game  to  the  very  last  breath,  he  was  im- 
pressed. Calvin  would  have  seen  red  and 
called  for  another  apostle. 

It  may  be  that  the  apostles,  excepting  Paul, 
held  it  to  be  better  to  confine  their  efforts  at 
first  to  Jewish  people,  and  from  that  to  grow 
more  slowly  but  with  less  accretion  of  false 
doctrine.  The  Christian  gospel  being  one  of 
love,  they  may  have  striven  to  have  it  grow 
without  hate.  Paul's  cutting  loose  from 
Jewish  affiliations  and  making  his  churches 
anti-Jewish  was  surely  not  in  accord  with  the 
teachings  of  the  Master.  It  may  be  that  these 
same  apostles,  whom  we  find  set  in  the  back- 
[186] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

ground,  screened  by  the  energetic  missioner  of 
his  compound  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  with  his 
own  vagrant  theories  and  Hebrew  myths,  are 
entitled  to  more  respect  and  reverence  than 
Paul.  Isn't  it  time  to  stop  robbing  Peter  to 
pay  Paul?  It  may  be  that  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
went  over  the  heads  of  His  disciples  and  that 
they  spent  the  end  of  their  days  looking  for  the 
second  coming  of  Christ;  but  so  did  Paul. 
He  was  more  certain  than  anybody  else  that 
the  world  was  coming  to  an  end  straightway. 
He  was  the  only  one  that  could  set  the  date. 
And  why  not  give  Jesus  credit  for  under- 
standing the  men  He  chose  as  His  companions? 
He  did  not  choose  Paul,  but  He  did  choose  those 
simpler  men.  Did  He  know  that  Paul  was 
coming  after  Him  to  be  the  nominal  com- 
municator of  His  message  to  the  world?  If  He 
did,  and  thought  well  of  what  this  human 
avalanche  would  say,  it  seems  as  though  He 
would  have  urged  His  disciples  to  welcome 
him  and  bear  with  him.  But  instead  of  this 
He  cautioned  them  earnestly  against  those 
who  should  follow  in  His  name,  teaching  false 
doctrine.  He  was  very  earnest  about  this. 
In  the  end,  Paul,  by  his  great  strength,  astute- 
ness, and  force,  prevailed  over  the  other  apos- 
tles. And  yet,  because  he  prevailed  is  no 
guaranty  that  he  was  right.  If  John's  allu- 
[187] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

sions  to  false  prophets  in  the  Apocalypse  refer 
to  Paul,  John's  opinion  in  this  matter  should 
be  of  weight. 

In  the  gospel  of  love  and  good-fellowship  as 
the  means  of  bringing  about  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  it  seems  possible  that  we  might  agree. 
Of  course,  some  of  us  are  so  crabbed  and  selfish 
that  our  idea  of  love  and  good-fellowship  is 
to  have  others  give  us  whatever  is  theirs  while 
we  give  nothing  in  return.  This  is  a  frequent 
attitude  of  the  man  who  boasts  of  wanting 
nothing  but  what  is  right.  But  even  old 
skinflints  may  become  animated  by  a  new 
spirit  if  all  the  rest  are  full  of  loving-kindness. 
Jesus  knew  all  this,  and  how  earnestly  and 
how  tenderly  He  sought  to  tell  it!  It  is  so 
simple,  so  scientific;  and  as  available  to-day 
as  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  is  sound 
psychology — indeed,  we  can  find  no  fault  with 
it  whatever.  It  requires  no  abuse  of  the  mind 
to  believe  it.  On  the  other  hand,  of  all  the 
doctrines  that  Paul  or  his  followers  have 
added  on :  the  virgin  birth,  the  prophecies  ful- 
filled and  unfulfilled,  justification  by  faith, 
vicarious  atonement,  and  the  many  other 
articles  of  faith  that  in  our  unbelieving  hearts 
we  know  are  not  so — these  things  seem  idle 
dreams,  speculations  of  a  day  that  is  past, 
speedily  vanishing  into  thin  air.  Without 
[188] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

them,  we  could  all  go  to  church  and  sing 
Christmas  hymns.  With  them,  the  number  of 
Christians  must  of  necessity  be  limited,  grouped 
by  denomination,  and  according  to  such  dogma 
as  they  can  bring  their  minds  to  endure. 


THE    PRICE    OF    ANGER 

IT  was  in  the  winter  of  1889,  the  year 
Lafcadio  Hearn  was  in  Ne^  York,  and 
we  were  talking  as  usual  until  late  into 
the  night  with  great  earnestness  and  ardor 
concerning  all  the  things  there  are.  He  was 
nearly  forty  years  old  at  the  tune,  and  I  was 
in  the  glorious  twenties. 

"There  is  nothing,"  I  exclaimed,  "eternally 
right  or  eternally  wrong!" 

"Oh  yes,  there  is!"  said  he,  and  this  with 
finality,  although  his  statements  were  usual- 
ly offered  in  the  form  of  suggestions.  "One 
thing  is  always  wrong — always:  to  cause  suf- 
fering in  others  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying 
one's  own  pleasure;  that  is  everlastingly 
wrong."  He  usually  ended  his  sentences  with 
a  rising  infection,  by  way  of  asking  his  com- 
panion if  he  did  not  agree,  but  I  remember 
clearly  the  intense  conviction  with  which  he 
said  this.  "Once,"  he  continued,  "I  was  in 
Tennessee,  walking  along  a  country  road,  and 
a  man  passed  me.  Some  distance  ahead  was 
a  kitten,  also  walking  along  the  road — a  pretty 
[190] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

little  kitten  that  was  doing  no  harm  to  any- 
body or  anything.  When  the  man  overtook 
it — he  must  have  been  crazed  by  anger — he 
picked  it  up,  and  just  for  his  own  satisfaction 
and  pleasure  he  blinded  it — and  threw  the 
poor  creature  away." 

"That  is  hard  to  excuse,"  I  said. 

"Oh,  I'm  sure  that  to  cause  suffering  for 
one's  own  pleasure  is  always  wrong.  I  ran 
after  the  man  as  fast  as  I  could  and  I  fired  all 
the  four  shots  that  were  left  in  the  revolver 
that  I  had  with  me,  but  I  missed  him.  You 
see,  with  my  defective  sight  I  can't  see  to 
shoot,  and  have  to  beware  lest  I  stumble.  It 
has  been,"  he  continued,  with  a  whimsical 
sigh,  "one  of  the  great  regrets  of  my  life  that 
I  did  not  kill  him." 

In  all  the  years  that  have  passed  since  then, 
I  have  been  unable  to  justify  that  Evil  Thing, 
the  infliction  of  an  injury  or  pain  to  gratify 
the  pleasure  of  him  who  causes  it.  It  is  the 
substance  of  vindictiveness,  and  we  may  well 
fear  it.  This  thing  is  not  anger,  but  it  is  the 
sequel  to  it. 

Now,  anger  is  of  vital  importance;  it  is  a 
remarkable  and  necessary  attribute  of  human 
nature.  It  is  not  always  an  evil.  There  is 
great  merit  in  righteous  anger.  It  is  a  normal 
reaction;  just  as  normal  as  the  processes  of 
[191] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

digestion.  Without  the  capacity  for  anger  we 
become  inert,  flabby — anybody's  meat.  Anger 
is  one  of  the  great  human  passions,  often  useful, 
although  more  often  loaded  with  a  power  to 
destroy.  It  is  also  at  times  an  enjoyable 
experience.  A  real  good  fight  is  a  delight,  no 
matter  what  the  old  ladies  may  say.  More- 
over, it  is  wholly  idle  to  demand  of  men  and 
boys  that  they  shall  not  fight.  The  joy  of 
conflict  is  a  genuine  joy. 

I  remember  once  a  man  did  me  an  injury. 
In  point  of  fact,  he  was  looking  after  his  own 
interests,  and  his  interests  conflicted  with  mine. 
He  did  not  act  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
game  as  I  understood  them,  but  then,  my 
understanding  was  not  large.  We  had  a  little 
encounter,  and  there  was  a  resounding  contact 
of  my  right  fist  with  his  neck,  whereupon  he 
bounded  backward  in  a  series  of  beautiful 
curves,  over  a  distance  of  naarly  twenty  feet. 
He  arose  and  went  his  way,  and  had  his  way — 
and  it  was  all  years  and  years  ago.  Since 
he  had  his  way,  and  inasmuch  as  I  am  not  of 
a  repining  habit,  there  should  be  no  ill-will 
between  us.  But  the  joy  of  that  punch  tingles 
still,  and  I  must  say  it  is  a  comfort. 

As  we  grow  older  the  desire  to  fight  dies  out, 
but  the  reason  is  a  physical  one.  I  would 
rather  have  for  mine  enemy  a  young  man  in 
[192] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

the  vigor  of  his  strength  than  an  old  man  in 
his  anger. 

Suppose  you  have  a  big  responsibility,  and 
along  comes  somebody  with  the  real  spirit  of 
evil,  the  lust  to  injure  or  to  cause  suffering 
for  his  own  pleasure,  and  he  proceeds  to  undo 
the  good  thing  you  have  been  trying  to  do. 
You  become  angry,  naturally  and  righteously, 
and  you  fight  to  overcome  his  evil  design. 
Then  you  fight  some  more,  doing  evil  unto 
this  enemy  until  you  are  satisfied.  He  may 
have  been  satisfied  some  time  before. 

Anger  also  seems  the  only  way  to  rouse 
some  people.  We  young  fellows  who  used  to 
read  the  books  of  Walter  Besant  as  they 
appeared  remember  All  Sorts  and  Conditions 
of  Men,  and  the  spirited  girl  who  owned  the 
brewery.  The  girl,  you  may  recall,  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  hopeless,  dull,  lethargic 
people  of  Mile  End  Road  must  be  made  angry 
as  an  introduction  to  thought.  Dear  little 
prophetess  she  was,  full  of  ginger  and  zip  and 
go,  but — here  I  fear  I  shall  offend,  neverthe- 
less it  is  out  of  my  heart  that  I  say  it — I  believe 
she  was  wrong.  Not  in  her  People's  Palace 
and  the  opportunities  she  offered,  but  only  in 
the  little  kink  in  her  mind  to  the  effect  that  a 
dull  and  stupid  man  or  woman  is  better  in 
anger  than  in  inertia.  Yellow  Journalism  is 
[193] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

born  of  this  fatuous  idea,  that  people  must  be 
roused  in  any  way  and  at  any  cost,  as  though 
madness  were  better  than  sleep  1 

Here  is  where  the  professor  and  I  disagreed. 
"Anything,"  he  exclaimed,  "is  better  than 
inertia!"  He  called  my  attention  to  cities, 
villages,  communities,  where  the  greatest  need 
of  nearly  every  male  inhabitant  is  a  good  kick, 
to  rouse  him.  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  should 
well  enjoy  being  the  instrument  of  grace  to 
accomplish  this  deed  of  mercy  in  some  com- 
munities, but  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  it  would 
make  for  public  welfare — quite  apart  from  the 
consideration  of  what  might  happen  to  me. 
We  argued  around  in  a  ring,  and  concluded 
where  we  started.  The  differences  were  rather 
of  temperament  than  of  logic,  I  being  of  easy- 
going disposition,  while  the  professor,  when 
thoroughly  aroused,  has  all  the  calm  and 
docility  of  a  charging  two-horned  rhinoceros — 
but  no  more. 

Let  us  look  this  thing  square  in  the  face. 
It  is  dangerous  to  rouse  people  to  anger, 
because,  somewhere  in  the  process,  anger  goes 
over  into  vindictiveness,  and  vindictiveness 
is  wholly  bad.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
righteous  vindictiveness.  The  evil  and  the 
danger  are  because  of  this  cleavage  that  takes 
place  as  anger  proceeds  from  what  seems  to  be 
[194] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

a  passion  for  justice  into  a  lust  to  injure  and  to 
destroy.  The  dividing-line  is  not  clear;  some- 
times vindictiveness  begins  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  experience,  sometimes  it  occurs 
only  after  a  long  time,  and  sometimes  it  does 
not  occur  at  all.  In  general,  however,  it  may 
be  said,  without  laying  down  any  hard  and  fast 
rule,  that  the  lower  the  order  of  civilization  the 
sooner  the  creature  of  anger  desires  to  strike. 
The  higher  the  order  of  civilization  the  longer 
people  retain  their  heads  and  use  their  judg- 
ment before  giving  way  to  anger. 

Anger  inhibits  judgment  and  paralyzes  the 
reasoning  faculties.  Why,  then,  incite  the 
crowd  to  anger  to  the  end  that  it  may  bring 
its  insanity  to  bear  upon  public  affairs?  Those 
who  do  this  thing  are  not  necessarily  of  evil 
intent;  the  best  adjective  that  I  can  find  to 
describe  them  is  naughty,  used  in  the  archaic 
sense. 

Why  do  so  many  of  us  resent  the  orator, 
silver-tongued  and  spellbinding?  Because  he 
hypnotizes  us  and,  for  the  time  being,  puts  into 
disuse  our  own  independent,  reasoning  faculties. 
We  know  that 'our  conclusions  are  not  to  be 
trusted  if  we  cannot  think  things  over,  using 
our  best  judgment.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
crowd :  if  roused  only  by  appeals  to  its  hatred 
and  wrath,  so  that  its  lust  to  injure  and  destroy 
[195] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

becomes  an  immediate  sequel  to  its  awakening, 
who  can  expect  it  to  judge  with  sanity,  to  order 
its  affairs  so  that  permanent  good  may  come? 

In  affairs  of  state  the  only  safe  appeal — we 
may  say  the  only  honest  appeal — is  to  the  in- 
telligence. In  matters  of  government,  an  ex- 
plosion of  the  emotions  has  results  very  similar 
to  those  of  an  explosion  of  dynamite;  and  we 
are  nearly  unanimous  in  the  belief  that  govern- 
ment by  dynamite  is  not  desirable. 

As  a  nation  we  are  confronted  with  many 
serious  problems — and  it  is  probably  good  for 
us  that  this  is  so.  But  we  shall  not  solve  our 
problems  with  a  hurrah  that  the  Great  Ameri- 
can People  can  and  does  meet  every  emergency 
with  consummate  skill  and  abounding  wisdom. 
Such  phrases  do  very  well  for  the  orator,  but 
they  will  not  help  those  of  us  who  are  con- 
scientious in  our  thinking. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
provides  that  public  affairs  shall  be  under  the 
control  of  three  departments  of  government — 
legislative,  executive,  and  judicial.  Since  it 
was  written  there  have  arisen  innumerable 
social  problems  formerly  regarded  as  personal. 
With  changing  conditions  they  have  ceased  to 
be  personal;  they  have  become  public.  The 
machinery  to  provide  for  them  may  be  in  the 
Constitution  as  it  was  written;  very  possibly 
[1961 


it  is;  it  is  doubtful  if  the  amendments  help 
us  much  in  this  matter.  But  the  whole  sub- 
ject, the  whole  business,  is  new;  we  do  not 
know  how  to  go  about  it.  We  may  be  agreed 
that  a  thing  is  bad,  but  we  are  in  a  quandary 
how  to  stop  it. 

We  listen  to  orators  at  election-time  and 
they  tell  us  that  if  we  vote  for  Brown,  Jones, 
or  Robinson  he  will  get  after  those  fellows 
who  are  keeping  us  all  from  growing  prosper- 
ous and  happy,  and  that  as  soon  as  he  is  elected 
the  Golden  Age  will  be  at  hand.  The  for- 
tunate candidate  then  confides  to  us  that 
what  we  want  is  a  thing  to  be  provided  by  the 
Legislature,  and  we  suffer  vain  regret  that  we 
did  not  think  a  little  harder  at  the  time  we 
voted.  But  we  take  fresh  heart  and  next  year 
we  elect  another  Talk  Bacillus  to  Congress  or 
to  the  state  Legislature — who  continues  to  talk. 
He  does  not  know  the  difference  between  con- 
structive thought  and  what  he  calls  an  "Appeal 
to  the  People." 

In  despair  we  turn  to  the  bar,  and  its  mem- 
bers tell  us  how  defectively  statutes  are  drawn, 
and  lead  us,  somehow,  to  believe  that  our  wel- 
fare is  in  the  hands  of  the  lawyers — the  while 
the  courts  continue  to  admit  to  membership 
of  the  bar,  to  be  officers  of  the  courts,  men 
of  neither  conscience  nor  character. 
U  [ 197  ] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

All  three  departments  of  government  claim 
jurisdiction  over  social  questions,  and  neither 
they  nor  we  know  how  to  handle  them — yet. 
Really  it  calls  for  greater  wisdom  than  ours 
to  point  the  way.  We  are  groping  along, 
sometimes  with  a  little  vision  and  sometimes  in 
total  blindness  to  the  fact  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  human  nature.  The  pure-food  law 
looks  after  the  labels  on  our  medicines,  but 
there  is  no  label  to  distinguish  thought  from 
demagogy;  and  some  of  our  men  most  capable 
of  usefulness  utter  the  one  and  spit  the  other 
at  us  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

What  we  need  is  discrimination.  Discrimi- 
nation presupposes  judgment,  and  judgment 
presupposes  wisdom;  and — God  help  us — 
we  have  not  wisdom  beyond  our  intelligence, 
our  common  intelligence,  the  thin  thread  of  it 
that  is  common  to  us  all,  whereby  we  work 
together.  But  I  believe  that  in  the  rule  of 
things  that  has  been  provided  for  us  there  is 
a  way  toward  greater  order  and  enlightenment. 
The  way  is  to  keep  our  heads  and  our  temper. 

To  meet  the  great  tasks  that  are  before  us, 
we  require  all  of  our  intelligence,  and  we  must 
be  sound  and  wholesome  of  mind.  We  must 
proceed  in  order.  The  price  of  anger  is  failure. 


THE  CHEMISTS  OF  THE 
FUTURE 

IN  the  Garden  of  Epicurus  Anatole  France 
expresses  the  opinion  that  we  might  have 
done  better  had  we  been  created  as  in- 
sects.    "If  I  had  created  men  and  women," 
he  says,  "I  should  have  framed  them  on  a  type 
widely  different  from  that  which  has  actually 
prevailed — that  of  the  higher  mammifers.     I 
should  have  made  men  and  women,  not  to 
resemble  the  great  apes,  as  they  do,  but  on 
the  models  of  insects  which,  after  a  life  as 
caterpillars,  change  into  butterflies,  and  for 
the  brief  final  term  of  their  existence  have  no 
thought  but  to  love  and  be  lovely.     I  should 
have  set  youth  at  the  end  of  the  human  span." 
I  sometimes  wonder  whether  our  efforts  at 
education  are  not  designed,  after  all,  to  give 
us  a  modicum  of  the  glory  of  the  insect;   to 
avoid  the  toothless  and  bent  decrepitude  to 
which  we  are  the  normal  heirs  in  age.     If  we 
cannot,  as  the  years  come  upon  us,  unfurl  our 
glittering  wings  and  spread  them  in  joyous 
[199] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

flight  through  a  world  of  sunshine  and  flowers 
and  honey  and  love,  we  can  dream  construc- 
tive dreams,  and  thus  achieve  the  golden  vision 
even  while  the  clutch  of  age  turns  our  faces 
into  comedy  masks.  Time  was  when  flesh 
was  devoured  in  its  natural  warmth  and  love 
was  of  the  forests.  The  thought  offends  us 
and  we  are  striving  after  something  else,  after 
a  different  order  of  living.  We  try  to  fit  a 
boy  at  school  for  an  enduring  usefulness,  a 
prolonged  activity.  Our  ideas  are  built  upon 
a  reign  of  peace,  and  the  wish  for  long  life  and 
cumulative  happiness  underlies  the  system  of 
education  to  which  all  are  agreed. 

We  miss  a  point,  I  think,  when  we  urge 
boys  to  study  in  order  that  they  may  grow  to 
achieve  the  power  to  command  other  men. 
This  defect  in  ideals,  however — if  such  it  be — 
is  less  the  fault  of  the  teacher  than  it  is  of  the 
mores,  of  the  folkways;  of  the  fathers  and 
mothers  even  more  than  of  the  boys  them- 
selves. It  is  not  a  fault  of  the  teaching  of 
science,  for  in  the  nature  of  its  ideals,  this 
differs  from  the  teaching  supposed  to  be  pre- 
paratory to  less  specialized  walks  of  life.  We 
do  not  care  to  develop  in  the  chemist,  the 
physicist,  or  the  biologist  the  power  to  com- 
mand. It  is  the  last  thing  we  think  of  in 
(200] 


PERCOLATOR  PAPERS 

connection  with  his  education.  Being  curious, 
and  seeking  the  joy  of  the  work,  which  are  the 
states  of  mind  most  needed  in  the  study  of 
science,  differ  vastly  from  the  desire  to  com- 
mand. 

Here  is  a  thesis  in  philosophy  which  we  have 
touched  upon  elsewhere,  but  it  is  important. 
Bossing  a  job  is  not  an  achievement  in  happi- 
ness unless  one  has  the  gift  to  do  it.  As  a  life 
task  it  assures  worry  and  care  and  it  inhibits 
all  independence.  The  man  who  rules  cannot 
have  his  own  way  unless  he  is  an  absolute 
monarch,  and  even  then  his  people  are  not 
always  obedient.  The  greatest  triumphs  are 
not  to  be  found  in  bidding  somebody  else  to  do 
things,  but  rather  in  the  doing  of  things  our- 
selves. The  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  surgeon, 
the  chemist,  the  man  of  research,  each  con- 
quers by  his  own  thought  and  work.  There 
would  seem  to  be  a  more  appealing  satisfaction 
in  their  achievements  than  there  is  in  being 
superintendent  of  a  boiler-factory,  although 
they  make  less  noise,  we  must  admit.  These 
things  we  know,  but  it  often  seems  that  our 
knowledge  of  them  is  passive,  especially  when 
we  urge  boys  to  study  to  the  end  that  they  may 
command. 

Old  standards  are  changing  and  traditions 
are  taking  wing,  but  we  must  hold  on  to  an 
[201] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

ordered  system  in  spite  of  everything.  The 
destructive  reformer  and  the  angry  reactionary 
are  alike  the  enemies  of  peace  and  progress. 
Neither  needs  to  think;  he  has  but  to  whip 
himself  into  a  passion  and  call  up  the  fires  of 
wrath  against  whatever  is  not  to  his  liking. 
The  blind  protagonists  of  single  causes, 
whether  they  be  for  sabotage  in  industry,  or 
for  Latin  and  Greek  at  the  expense  of  every- 
thing else,  or  for  science  at  the  expense  of  every- 
thing else  in  education,  are  all  alike  Prussian 
in  their  practice  of  the  philosophy  of  conquest 
or  destruction. 

It  is  in  regard  to  education  that  we  meet 
immediately  an  issue  of  which  most  of  us  have 
grown  aweary;  simply  because  there  has  been 
so  much  talk  and  so  little  light  shed  upon  it. 
The  question  whether  a  boy  should  address 
his  studies  to  science  or  to  the  humanities  has 
been  asked  with  all  the  insistence  and  incon- 
sequence of  a  parrot,  that  repeats,  day  in 
and  day  out,  a  single  question  to  which  it 
would  not  know  the  answer  if  it  were  given. 

It  has  been  a  favorite  subject  for  juvenile 
debating  societies.  The  grown-ups  have  held 
mock  trials  over  it  in  which  the  arguments  were 
presented,  not  as  in  learned  discussion,  to  seek 
the  truth,  but  rather  as  briefs  of  lawyers  at 
[202] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

court  designed  to  win  the  case  and  save  the 
positions  of  the  least  useful  teachers.  As  a 
result  we  see  our  secondary  schools  giving  up 
their  most  valuable  classical  asset,  the  study 
of  the  Greek  language,  and  more  particularly 
its  literature,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  study 
of  Latin  by  way  of  compromise;  taught  strictly 
by  volume,  at  so  many  lines  per  day,  with  no 
thought  that  the  pupil  shall  even  learn  the 
language  or  that  the  study  of  it  shall  be  more 
to  him  than  an  intellectual  treadmill. 

And  yet  for  a  number  of  years  past  there 
has  been  a  voice  calling  in  the  wilderness,  the 
voice  in  Ghent  of  a  young  professor,  ripe  in 
scientific  and  humanistic  scholarship,  who 
declared  that  the  history  of  science  is  not 
written,  and  yet  that  the  history  of  civilization 
is  the  history  of  science.  That  was  Dr.  George 
Sarton,  of  the  University  of  Ghent,  who 
issued  and  bore  the  expense  of  a  periodical 
called  Isis,  printed  in  several  languages,  to 
prove  his  contention.  While  engaged  in  this 
propaganda  there  came  the  German  hordes, 
and  they  murdered  and  destroyed,  but,  for- 
tunately, he  and  his  family  escaped.  Now  he  is 
engaged  as  research  associate  of  the  Carnegie 
Institution  and  his  light  begins  to  shine  again. 
He  proposes  the  New  Humanism,  which  is 
based  upon  the  History  of  Science,  and  along 
[203] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

with  his  work  he  labors  unceasingly  for  an 
institution  for  the  study  of  this  very  thing. 

Let  us  give  our  imagination  play  for  a  few 
minutes  while  we  follow  him.  I  shall  draw 
random  sentences  translated  from  an  essay 
called  "Le  Nouvel  Humanisme,"  published  in 
Scientia  of  Bologna. 

No  real  scientific  education  exists  as  yet  [says 
hej.  .  .  .  The  intellectual  elite  is  divided  into  two 
groups  which  for  want  of  better  terms  I  shall  call 
"literary"  and  "scientific."  .  .  .  Because  of  an 
unuttered  tradition,  all  questions  of  education  have 
remained  the  exclusive  concern  of  the  literary  group, 
while  the  scientific  body  distributes  information  of 
technical  knowledge.  .  .  .  The  literary  savants  are 
the  real  educators.  .  .  .  Therefore  our  system  of 
education  is  still  of  a  medieval  type.  There  has 
been  added  to  it  by  successive  steps  a  scientific 
tuition  increasingly  complex,  but  such  tuition  has 
somehow  remained  outside  the  system:  the  heart 
of  education  has  scarcely  been  influenced  by  it.  ... 

History  is  the  memory  of  our  race;  ...  it  is  the 
experience  of  humanity.  ...  It  is  our  duty  as  men  to 
know  the  past.  But  is  it  not  our  duty  also  to  know 
the  present?  And  the  future  .  .  .  may  it  not  inspire 
us?  The  past  is  unchangeable;  we  have  no  power 
to  modify  it,  but  the  future  is  in  our  hands.  Therein 
lies  all  the  hope,  all  the  dignity,  and  all  the  greatness 
of  our  life.  Now  the  knowledge  of  the  present  and 
the  exploration  of  the  future  both  imply  a  scientific 
education.  ...  It  is  not  so  much  the  scientific 
knowledge  that  counts  as  the  scientific  spirit.  It  is 
[204] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

disinterested.  The  real  men  of  science  are  inspired 
by  the  same  idealism  as  are  the  best  among  the 
literary  men.  They  have  the  same  desire  to  attain 
the  truth,  the  same  nostalgic  de  la  beaute — but  they 
have,  with  their  great  respect  for  the  truth,  a  pro- 
founder  need  for  precision  in  facts.  .  .  . 

A  history  of  human  progress  should  be  focused 
on  the  narration  of  activities  that  are  really  progres- 
sive. .  .  .  Where,  then,  do  we  find  the  certain 
marks  of  progress?  ...  Is  our  progress  in  moral 
or  religious  realms?  Are  we  purer  than  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  Evangelistic  period  or  than  the  first 
Buddhists?  Are  our  sculptors  greater  than  the 
Greek  or  Assyrian  sculptors  or  than  those  of  Nara? 
Are  our  painters  greater  than  those  of  the  T'ang 
period  or  the  Italian  primitives?  .  .  .  Progress  is 
a  vague  notion  and  it  is  open  to  discussion  in  nearly 
every  field  except  that  of  science.  .  .  .  But  with  an 
outlook  upon  progress  all  humanity  appears  as  one 
immortal  man  who  remains  almost  the  same  through- 
out the  ages  except  that  his  experience — his  science 
— grows  ceaselessly.  He  has  periods  of  wonderful 
renascence  of  youth  and  of  inspiration,  but  even 
outside  of  these  his  experience  continues  to  grow. 
The  story  of  his  life  is  the  story  of  this  accumula- 
tion of  knowledge.  .  .  .  Human  progress  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  development  of  science,  and  a  general 
history  of  which  the  fundamental  theme  is  not  the 
history  of  science  can  be  neither  complete  nor 
exact.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  sufficient  to  add  the  history  of  science 
to  history  as  it  stands.  ...  It  is  necessary  to  con- 
struct a  new  historic  synthesis.  A  history  of 
progress  must  first  of  all  point  out  the  continuity 
[205] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

of  progress.  The  history  of  civilization  as  it  is 
presented  to  our  day  and  generation  leaves  out  that 
which  is  most  essential,  and  thus  it  is  not  only 
incomplete,  but  false. 

These  sentences  are  but  glimpses  into  his 
argument.  Of  course  he  refers  to  the  study 
of  science  in  the  scholastic  sense,  and  not  to  it 
as  merely  incidental  to  the  successful  prosecu- 
tion of  business  or  to  that  quality  of  specialized 
study  that  provides  a  trade  rather  than  a 
learned  profession. 

The  conclusion  is  reached  that,  if  this  larger 
view  of  the  New  Humanism  were  to  prevail 
and  we  were  to  begin  again,  reconstructing 
history  on  the  basis  of  science — that  is,  of  man's 
development  through  the  conquest  of  nature — 
there  would  be  opened  up  a  past  which  offers 
to  historians  the  most  engaging  field.  The 
whole  argument  invites  them  to  enter  those 
delectable  meadows,  ripe  for  the  harvest. 
As  for  discouraging  philology,  it  would  encour- 
age it  as  nothing  else  would.  Latin  and  Greek 
are  but  partial  demands;  among  others,  Pali 
is  needed,  and  so  is  Chinese  and  Hebrew  and 
Sanskrit  and  Arabic,  to  mention  but  a  few  of 
its  calls  upon  scholarship. 

We  are  trying  [he  says]  to  consider  the  history 
of  mankind  as  we  would  write  the  history  of  a  great 
1206) 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

man;  instead  of  addressing  ourselves  solely  to  his 
seasons  of  sickness,  his  quarrels,  and  his  plays,  or 
the  accidents  of  his  life,  we  should  address  ourselves 
more  particularly  to  the  development  of  his  genius; 
to  the  observation  of  his  growth.  We  have  no  such 
history  of  mankind  as  yet. 

Here  is  another  idea.  We  have  science 
enough  now  to  provide  a  beautiful,  happy,  and 
good  world.  What  shall  we  do  with  it?  We 
are  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  We  can  follow 
the  German  system  and  cultivate  it  as  a  thing 
apart,  as  a  tool  to  be  used  for  good  or  for  evil, 
and  let  human  vanity  continue  to  rule  and 
continue  to  inflict  upon  us  all  the  debaucheries 
of  human  passions,  uncontrolled  or  miscon- 
trolled.  Or  we  can  grow  in  wisdom  and  in 
righteousness  out  of  the  great  sufferings  of  these 
days,  and  weave  into  humanity  the  study  and 
practice  of  science  with  a  new  and  big  resolu- 
tion, and  gird  up  our  loins  and  go  to  it!  Why 
should  we  not  put  an  end  to  the  petty  quib- 
blings  and  jealousies  of  scholarship  as  offenses 
against  the  human  welfare?  We  are  all  ig- 
norant, grossly  ignorant,  either  of  one  subject 
or  of  another.  There  is  no  one  who  even 
knows  the  history  of  the  development  of  our 
own  kind.  We  need  this  study  to  help  us 
correlate  facts  unto  the  truth,  which  is  also 
an  art  in  which  we  are  sorely  lacking.  With 
[207] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

this  step  taken  in  advance,  we  should  cease 
to  follow  the  case-winning  methods  of  lawyers 
at  court;  we  should  order  our  minds  in  dis- 
cussion to  seek  the  truth.  Our  trouble  has 
been  a  narrowness  of  vision  and  we  are  suffering 
from  it  to-day.  The  picture  of  a  class-room 
of  bright,  energetic,  ambitious  boys  working 
over  so  many  lines  of  Virgil,  and  then  so  many 
lines  of  Virgil,  and  then  so  many  lines  of  Virgil, 
day  in  and  day  out,  term  in  and  term  out, 
with  not  a  thought  of  anything  to  be  done  or 
accomplished  or  made  better  in  the  world — 
as  though  the  place  were  an  undertaker's  shop 
and  the  effort  were  to  embalm  something  dead 
into  the  minds  of  the  pupils — is  disheartening. 
But  the  treadmill  quality  would  disappear 
entirely  if  the  purpose  of  the  study  were  to 
dig  into  the  archives  and  add  to  the  wealth  of 
history  the  records  of  man's  achievement 
rather  than  the  record  of  his  wars,  his  dilections, 
his  foibles,  and  his  vanities.  Why  not  look 
upward  for  our  high  lights?  Imagine  the 
joy  of  being  Latin  teacher  in  a  school  of  which 
the  graduating  class  annually  contributed  a 
record  of  man's  advancement  in  medieval 
times!  There  would  be  no  room  in  it  for  boys 
who  couldn't  study  the  language  or  who  did 
not  care  for  it.  It  would  hardly  include  all  the 
boys  in  the  form,  but  think  what  a  class  it 
[208] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

would  be!    And  the  material  for  this  work  is 
ours  for  the  seeking 

It  is  always  pleasant  to  think  how  we  may 
lift  up  all  mankind  by  our  own  great  merit, 
and  how,  when  we  have  done  this  thing,  every- 
body will  be  sorry  when  we  die.  As  boys, 
most  of  us  dreamed  of  splendid  conquests 
without  reference  to  betterment,  by  our  own 
power  and  might,  just  as  though  we  had 
been  so  many  little  Hohenzollerns;  but  when 
we  grew  older  and  discovered  that  the  power 
and  might  were  not  ours  to  command,  we 
thought  how  we  might  win  esteem  and  au- 
thority by  subtlety  or  wisdom  or  goodness, 
according  to  our  respective  natures.  Most  of 
us,  even  though  we  be  gray-haired  and  rheu- 
matic and  short-winded,  are  still  prepared  to 
bear  the  responsibility  of  greatness,  if  it  should 
come  to  us.  We  never  cease  to  be  children. 
Sometimes,  however,  it  is  more  profitable, 
even  though  it  is  not  encouraging,  to  look 
inwardly  and  take  an  inventory  of  what  we 
find.  It  is  better  to  do  this  than  to  try  to  run 
away  from  ourselves  or  to  engage  in  vain  and 
unprofitable  boasting.  As  men  of  science  and, 
more  particularly,  as  chemists,  let  us  take  such 
an  inventory  now.  We  hear  some  of  our  de- 
fects frequently  enumerated  according  to  the 
lights  of  the  classical  Old  Guard,  and  while 
[209] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

they  are  intense  and  severe  and  sometimes  a 
bit  monotonous,  they  are  neither  complete 
nor,  to  my  thinking,  are  they  correct. 

For  instance,  in  nearly  every  plea  for  the 
humanities  that  I  read  in  current  periodicals 
the  burden  of  complaint  against  science  and 
the  teaching  of  it  is  set  forth  in  allegations 
as  to  what  Dr.  Abraham  Flexner  thinks.  Of 
course  it  is  not  given  to  us  to  know  what  any 
one  really  thinks,  although  one  of  the  pur- 
poses of  education  is  to  enable  us  to  construe 
from  the  spoken  and  written  words  of  others 
a  reasonable  intent  of  their  statements.  But 
if  Doctor  Flexner,  who  is  himself  a  ripe  scholar 
in  the  humanities,  really  thought  the  thoughts 
attributed  to  him,  he  would  be  entitled  to  the 
grand  prize  for  idiocy  among  all  the  men 
engaged  in  education  to-day.  I  have  read 
many  of  his  writings  with  great  care,  and  have 
discussed  problems  of  education  with  him  at 
length,  but  I  fail  to  discover  in  him  the  thoughts 
his  opponents  declare  him  to  have.  Indeed, 
he  frankly  denies  both  the  thoughts  and  the 
motives;  nevertheless,  the  trained  minds  of  a 
considerable  number  of  fighting  classical 
scholars  insist  that  he  is,  in  effect,  the  enemy 
of  all  art. 

Instead  of  engaging  in  polemics,  let  us 
humble  ourselves  and  consider  more  intimately 
(210) 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

some  of  our  real  shortcomings.  We  speak  an 
insufferably  ugly  language.  It  lacks  both 
grace  and  form.  Many  of  our  words  in  con- 
stant use  surely  have  no  place  in  gracious 
speech.  Who  cares  if  they  are  in  the  dic- 
tionaries? Even  so,  we  have  no  right  to  dis- 
turb the  air  with  offensive  noises. 

Another  fault  of  which  many  of  us  who 
think  and  write  of  chemistry  are  constantly 
guilty  is  a  certain  Latinized  awkwardness  for 
which  we  have  no  other  excuse  than  esthetic 
inertia.  Let  us  indicate  a  sentence  that  might 
well  pass  without  adverse  comment  if  it  were 
addressed  to  chemists — so  shiftless  we  have 
grown  to  be:  "After  crystallization  and  filtra- 
tion the  utilization  of  the  filtrate  is  recommended 
for  lixiviation  until  saturation  is  reached."  Such 
a  sentence  has  no  place  in  good  society,  gram- 
mar or  no  grammar!  We  know  very  well 
that  words  with  these  endings  should  be 
avoided  when  it  is  possible  to  do  so;  but  we 
go  right  on  using  them,  almost,  it  would  seem, 
as  often  as  we  can,  and  coining  as  many  as 
suit  our  convenience,  just  as  though  we  were 
so  many  Germans!  I  respectfully  propose 
the  study  of  chemical  rhetoric  as  needed  by 
all  of  us. 

For  years  we  have  been  familiar  with  cataly- 
sis, the  most  social  of  all  phenomena  of  matter. 
[211J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

This  is  an  idea  teeming  with  poetry  and  humor 
— for  human  catalysts  abound  everywhere — 
but  we  have  not  used  the  expression  except 
to  explain  the  occasional  reactions  of  platinum 
sponge,  precipitated  nickel,  and  a  few  other 
bodies  of  whilom  catalytic  disposition.  We 
must,  indeed,  be  dull  people  if  we  have  a  con- 
cept of  this  sort  and  do  not  use  it  every  day. 
The  process  is  known  to  every  school-boy 
who  has  studied  elementary  chemistry.  It 
has  to  do  with  certain  bodies  which,  by  their 
mere  presence,  cause  reactions  to  take  place 
which  would  not  do  so  otherwise.  Let  us 
imagine  two  bodies  in  a  solution,  which  should 
combine,  but,  somehow,  do  not.  We  shake 
the  solution  and  heat  it,  and  nothing  happens. 
Then  we  add  a  minute  quantity  of  the  catalyst 
and,  presto!  the  whole  solution  froths  up  and 
some  of  it  spills  over  the  side,  so  violent  is 
the  reaction !  The  very  thing  that  we  planned 
to  happen  does  happen.  And  the  little  quantity 
of  the  body  which  we  call  the  catalyst  is  found 
all  unconcerned  and  unchanged  at  the  bottom 
of  the  vessel.  When  chemists  were  at  work  on 
the  technical  synthesis  of  indigo  it  seemed 
reasonable  to  start  with  naphthalene  as  the 
raw  material.  Naphthalene  was  cheap  and 
large  quantities  of  it  were  available.  But  it 
was  impossible  to  induce  the  desired  reaction 
[212] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

to  take  place.  The  research  chemist  watched 
his  temperatures  carefully,  when,  suddenly, 
his  thermometer  broke  and  a  drop  of  mercury 
fell  into  the  beaker.  He  began  to  sputter  with 
annoyance,  when  the  very  thing  he  had  been 
wishing  for  took  place  right  before  his  eyes. 
Mercury  was  the  catalyst,  and  his  problem 
was  solved. 

Now  think  of  the  human  catalyst!  Suppose 
we  sit  around  a  table  on  a  rainy  day.  Every- 
body and  everything  is  dismal.  The  world, 
in  the  eyes  of  every  one  present,  is  dreary. 
Then  somebody  comes  in,  wants  to  know  if  he 
may  sit  down,  tells  a  story,  and  in  five  minutes' 
time  he  has  the  entire  mental  atmosphere 
changed.  The  cloud  of  gloom  is  dispelled  and 
we,  who  were  despondent  before,  are  now 
become  cheerful  and  full  of  hope.  The  man 
who  came  in  last  was  a  catalyst.  And  there 
are  catalysts  unto  gloom  as  well  as  those  who 
instigate  reactions  of  joy.  Every  one  of  us 
knows  more  human  catalysts  than  are  recorded 
of  matter  in  all  the  books  of  chemistry. 

We  do  well  to  honor  the  old  Scotchman, 
Doctor  Brown,  but  why,  oh,  why,  have  we 
no  better  name  than  Brownian  Movement  for 
the  remarkable  phenomenon  which  he  first 
observed — this  perpetual  dance  of  the  colloidal 
particles  which  the  ultra-microscope  shows 
15  [2131 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

us?  Here  is  the  kinetic  theory  of  matter  made 
manifest!  Here  is  the  unending  whirling 
swirl  of  the  universe  in  evidence,  as  distinct, 
as  inevitable,  as  the  rising  sun.  Think  of  the 
poetry,  the  romance,  which  all  humanity  has 
developed  in  connection  with  the  morning 
and  evening  twilight!  Where  is  the  poetry 
of  the  Brownian  Movement? 

Osmosis  is  another  social  process.  It  is  a 
curious  kind  of  an  inherent  drive  within  things, 
and  the  measure  of  this  drive  is  called  osmotic 
pressure. 

On  page  13  is  a  verse  of  doggerel  that  tries 
to  tell  of  it.  Without  attempting  to  define 
osmosis  in  its  entirety  let  us  take  a  simple 
example  to  illustrate  the  point  at  issue. 
Please  take  it  for  granted  that  sugar  such  as 
we  eat  may  be  called  crystalloid,  whereas 
starch  is  colloid  in  its  nature.  We  need  not 
discuss  these  differences  at  this  time.  Let  us 
dissolve  a  little  of  either  sugar  or  starch  in 
some  water  in  a  beaker  or  cup.  Now  let  us 
insert  a  tube  into  the  solution,  the  lower  end 
of  which  we  have  closed  tight  by  means  of 
what  is  called  a  semi-permeable  membrane 
bound  upon  it.  In  a  little  while  the  water 
will  enter  the  tube  through  the  semi-permeable 
membrane  and  even  rise,  within  the  tube, 
above  the  level  of  the  solution  in  the  cup. 
[2141 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

Only  the  solvent,  the  water,  goes  through. 
The  solute,  whether  it  be  sugar  or  starch, 
remains  behind.  Neither  crystalloid  nor  col- 
loid can  get  through  this  wall  which  lets  in 
the  water  until  it  is  driven  above  the  surface 
of  the  solution  surrounding  it.  The  force 
which  drives  the  water  up  until  the  weight  of 
the  column  of  water  within  the  tube  brings 
it  into  equilibrium  is  known  as  osmotic 
pressure. 

Now  let  us  use  a  permeable  instead  of  a  semi- 
permeable  membrane,  and  perform  another 
experiment.  That  is,  considered  as  a  filter,  it 
must  be  coarser  than  the  other.  We  divide 
an  open  dish  into  two  parts  by  means  of  a  per- 
meable membrane.  This  must  be  nicely  done 
so  that  there  is  no  passage  from  one  side  to 
the  other  except  through  the  wall.  Then  we 
fill  one  side  with  a  solution  of  sugar  and  starch 
in  water  and  we  pour  pure  water  into  the 
empty  side  to  the  same  height  as  the  other. 
Right  away  the  crystalloid — the  sugar — will 
proceed  to  diffuse  through  the  wall  and  keep 
the  process  up  until  there  is  the  same  amount 
of  sugar  in  solution  on  either  side  of  it.  But 
the  starch,  being  of  a  colloidal  nature,  cannot 
get  through  at  all.  It  is  held  back.  Again, 
let  us  observe  these  more  or  less  permeable 
walls  of  society,  permeable  to  some  of  us,  bu' 
[215] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

forbidden  to  others.  The  world  is  full  of  them 
— and  every  one  of  us  has  felt  them.  Vain  old 
ladies  are  adepts  at  fashioning  them — to  keep 
certain  persons  out  while  letting  others  in. 
Observe  the  osmotic  pressure  of  some  persons 
to  get  through  almost  anything  permeable! 
And  yet  we  have  no  better  word  for  this  divid- 
ing wall  through  which  crystalloid  substances 
pass  freely,  but  which  bars  the  way  for  colloids, 
than  permeable  membrane.  Have  we  no 
imagination?  No  humor?  No  wit?  Here  is 
a  great  series  of  phenomena,  familiar  to  all  of 
us,  with  laws  that  apply  to  complex  human 
organisms  as  definitely  as  they  do  to  the 
minute  particles  which  we  imagine  and  com- 
pute, but,  somehow,  we  have  not  grasped  their 
significance;  or,  if  we  do  grasp  it,  we  remain 
speechless  before  the  unfamiliar  task  to 
expound. 

So  we  who  follow  science  should  be  modest 
and  acknowledge  our  shortcomings.  We  have 
neglected  the  humanistic  side  of  science  and 
it  will  be  wholesome  to  admit  it.  We  have 
let  ourselves  be  led  by  the  Germans  in  this 
respect,  whose  ruling  Mephistogeist  has  denied 
that  there  is  such  a  thing.  We  must  shake 
these  German  fetters  from  us  and  address 
ourselves  diligently  and  thoughtfully  to  the 
great  task  of  bringing  chemistry  into  the 
[216J 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

humanities.  Thus  far  we  chemists  have  been 
too  narrow  in  our  outlook,  and  we  might  as 
well  know  it,  whether  we  acknowledge  it  or 
not.  We  are  bound  to  be  workers  in  the  hive 
of  progress;  we  cannot  afford  to  sit  back  and 
rest  in  luxury,  because  there  is  far  too  much 
for  us  to  do.  But  if  we  persevere  in  our 
efforts  toward  the  light,  maybe  we  can  even 
influence  our  friends  of  classic  scholarship  to 
take  a  more  cheerful  view  of  the  world,  to 
wander  out  and  get  the  morning  air,  to  infuse 
life  into  their  studies,  because  none  needs 
the  benign  influence  of  the  humanities  more 
than  do  the  students  of  science.  Then,  if 
teachers  of  science  do  their  work  earnestly  and 
well,  teachers  of  the  classics  may  take  fresh 
heart  and  do  likewise.  They  may  be  less 
willing  to  give  up  Greek  than  they  are  now, 
and  this  is  important  because  students  of 
science  need  above  all  other  things  that  very 
quality  of  enlightenment  which  is  found  in 
Greek  literature. 

Our  present  business,  however,  is  to  con- 
sider the  chemists  of  the  future,  and  we  must 
address  ourselves  to  a  consideration  of  the 
means  and  instruments  which  we  have  im- 
mediately before  us.  This  history  of  civiliza- 
tion based  upon  science  is  not  yet  written, 
and  our  young  men  are  here.  Many  of  them 
[217] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

are  about  to  become  chemists,  and  the  question 
what  they  shall  study  is  important.  If,  as  all 
too  often  occurs,  they  study  only  chemistry 
with  just  enough  mathematics  and  physics  to 
get  through  examinations,  and  nothing  more, 
they  cannot  be  regarded  as  educated  in  chem- 
istry. They  are  merely  trained  in  reactions, 
and  all  that  we  can  say  of  them  is  that  they 
have  learned  the  laboratory  trade.  They  are 
not  chemists  in  the  scholarly  sense. 

I  venture  the  statement,  therefore,  that  our 
young  men  who  would  study  chemistry  need 
at  least  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  Greek  litera- 
ture. The  language  still  lives  and  it  has  the 
sound  of  rolling  waters.  There  are  whole 
realms  of  philosophy,  of  poetry,  of  drama,  for 
us.  There  is  a  golden  age  made  manifest  and 
brought  to  life  before  us.  Our  young  men 
need  it  unless  they  are  so  crippled  by  native 
awkwardness  of  mind  that  they  are  halted 
at  the  very  concept  of  beauty.  All  of  us  who 
hold  the  graces  of  life  in  esteem  need  what  the 
ancient  Greeks  have  to  tell  us.  Therefore,  I 
suggest  that  if  men  and  women  of  science 
set  a  diligent  example — which  is  all  that  we 
can  do — maybe  those  who  teach  Greek  will 
also  grow  diligent  and  breathe  fresh  life  into 
their  work  and  bring  to  our  boys  and  girls  so 
lovely  a  vision  of  the  golden  age  that  it  will 
[218] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

enter  their  souls  and  enlighten  them.  They 
may  make  the  subject  so  beautiful  and  en- 
gaging that  imaginative  young  persons  will 
not  let  the  opportunity  pass  them  by.  The 
world  of  wrath  in  which  we  live  to-day  must 
be  made  endurable  for  later  generations,  and 
for  this,  above  all  other  qualities  than  sym- 
pathy, we  need  the  clear  illuminating  thoughts 
of  better  days. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  very  practical  side  to 
the  teaching  of  chemistry,  because  of  its  close 
affiliation  with  industry.  And  it  is  in  industry 
that  the  scholarly  man  is  needed,  as  we  shall 
presently  see.  Every  month  we  hear  of  new 
enterprises  starting  on  a  large  scale  in  one 
place  or  another  throughout  the  country. 
Aside  from  chemical  factories,  we  find  chem- 
ical work  forming  a  part  of  nearly  all  branches 
of  manufacture  and  commerce.  The  dry- 
goods  merchant  who  lacks  a  working  connec- 
tion with  a  good  textile  laboratory  can  no 
longer  keep  up  with  the  procession.  He  can- 
not tell  his  customer  the  fiber  content,  the 
tensile  strength,  the  fastness  of  the  color  to 
light  or  washing,  or  the  wearing  qualities  of 
the  goods  he  sells.  He  can  guarantee  his 
wares  if  he  is  so  minded,  but  if  he  would  avoid 
loss  by  the  return  of  goods  sold,  he  must  buy 
only  from  the  mills  of  whose  products  he  is 
[2191 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

certain.  He  cannot  buy  in  the  open  market, 
for  the  reason  that  appearances  are  often 
deceptive.  He  must  pay  the  premium  that 
goods  which  bear  a  well-known  trade-mark 
command,  and  even  then  his  guaranty  is  an 
indorsement  of  the  statement  of  some  one  else; 
it  is  an  indorsement  based  upon  faith  and  not 
upon  knowledge.  Sometimes  too,  trade-marks 
are  the  only  stable  features  of  merchandise. 

To-day  the  making  of  machinery  is  not 
completely  done  unless  the  maker  knows  the 
steel  he  is  using,  and  if  a  machine  is  to  stand 
wear  and  tear  every  member  of  it  should  be 
made  of  that  very  material  which  is  best 
suited  to  the  requirements  which  it  is  to  meet. 

Municipal  wastes  must  be  conserved.  They 
must  be  conserved.  Our  only  salvation  from 
a  plague  of  disease  is  to  provide  against  the 
pollution  with  which  we  now  surround  our- 
selves. There  are  places  along  the  East  River 
in  New  York  where  the  water  is  not  changed 
by  the  tide,  and  its  condition  is  already  septic. 
Other  cities  are  in  like  predicament,  and  we 
know  well  that  this  condition  invites  disease. 
We  also  know  that  where  disease  is  bidden 
it  is  likely  to  enter.  Conditions  must  be 
changed,  and  it  is  chemists  alone  who  can 
change  them. 

So  with  chemical  industries  cropping  out 
[220] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

all  over  the  land,  with  chemical  control  coming 
into  vogue  for  nearly  all  the  industries,  with  a 
change  in  the  ways  of  trade  under  both 
statutes  and  custom  so  that  caveat  emptor  is 
becoming  obsolete  and  the  rule  is  developing 
that  the  seller  must  beware  that  his  goods 
are  exactly  as  they  are  represented  to  be — 
the  day  of  the  chemist  is  at  hand.  He  will 
be  needed  everywhere;  in  making  things,  in 
keeping  them,  in  buying  and  selling  them, 
and  in  the  disposal  of  that  which  is  not  used. 

What  manner  of  man  shall  the  future 
chemist  be?  He  will  soon  be  part  of  a  group 
that  is  spoken  of  in  general  terms.  He  works 
mostly  by  himself.  Suppose  we  take  a  phi- 
listine  view  of  him  and  train  him  accordingly, 
knowing  that  in  great  measure,  whatever  we 
think  of  him,  that  will  he  be.  Because  he  is 
likely  to  work  by  himself  let  us  say  that  he 
does  not  need  social  polish  such  as  is  required 
by  physicians  or  lawyers — or  by  floor-walkers 
in  dry-goods  stores.  Let  us  declare  that  no 
other  collateral  education  is  necessary  except 
enough  mathematics  and  physics  to  see  him 
through.  Let  us  begin  early  and  turn  out 
chemical  journeymen  whose  business  it  is  to 
obey  orders  and  get  stipulated  results.  We 
can  provide  just  such  workers  in  chemistry. 
They  will  not  be  able  to  express  themselves; 
[221] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

they  cannot  possibly  rank  as  professional  men  ; 
they  will  be  ill  paid;  their  imagination  will  be 
crippled  from  the  start,  and  they  will  be  dan- 
gerous withal.  This  is  the  philistine  plan  for 
educating  chemists,  which  is  warmly  advo- 
cated, and  it  is  at  once  cheap  and  very  appeal- 
ing to  the  type  of  mind  that  looks  upon  the 
art  of  selling  goods  as  the  proper  and  legitimate 
focus  of  control  and  authority.  Let  us  beware 
of  it !  And,  as  I  said  before,  a  man  so  educated 
is  not  a  real  chemist;  he  is  one  who  has 
learned  the  laboratory  trade  and  no  more. 

Here  we  meet  the  great  hazard  of  science, 
the  danger  that  every  branch  of  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  tool,  but  not  as  a  great  pro- 
fession with  obligations  toward  the  general 
welfare.  The  real  problem  is,  shall  we  take  a 
broad  view  and  regard  the  study  and  applica- 
tion of  science  as  a  part  of  life,  recognizing  its 
power  for  good  and  evil,  and  recognizing  that, 
no  matter  what  we  practise,  we  cannot  dis- 
integrate ourselves  from  the  body  politic? 
Or  shall  we  take  a  narrow  one,  such  as  we 
have  called  the  philistine  view,  and  recognize 
no  greater  obligations  than  the  man  with  the 
hoe,  who  plies  his  instrument  for  a  certain 
time  at  a  given  wage,  and  there  his  part  of  the 
contract  stops.  There  is  no  real  progress 
to  be  made  unless  we  insist  upon  it  that  degrees 
[222] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

in  science  shall  be  awarded  only  to  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  relations  of  science  to 
human  affairs  as  well  as  with  the  relations  of 
various  bodies  to  one  another.  We  can't  keep 
the  teachers  of  science  out  of  high-schools,  and 
we  do  not  want  to.  We  want  to  teach  science 
as  widely  as  we  can  in  connection  with  human 
welfare.  We  must  establish  new  conventions 
of  righteousness,  and  the  substance  of  these 
will  have  to  do  with  the  relation  of  every  act 
to  the  general  welfare.  Therefore  the  sub- 
stance of  my  argument  is  that  science  be 
taught  as  a  part  of  human  life,  as  the  key  to 
man's  relation  with  nature,  and  that  it  shall 
not  be  considered  as  a  mere  tool  for  the  con- 
venient accomplishment  of  good  or  evil  save 
under  the  complete  responsibility  of  the  man 
or  woman  who  wields  it.  Unless  we  rise  to 
this  level  we  shall  be  the  victims  of  German 
ideals,  which  would  be  worse  for  us  than  a 
defeat  at  arms. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  short  and  easy 
road  to  the  masteiy  of  science.  Like  art, 
science  is  long,  while  life  is  short.  Under- 
standing of  it  is  not  proved  by  university  de- 
grees, for  the  most  learned  are  sometimes 
without  them.  The  world  of  science  is  too 
great  for  snobbery,  and  that  which  is  applied 
does  not  cease  to  be  pure.  We  can  all  under- 
[223] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

stand  some  of  it,  and  no  one  can  master  it  all. 
Therefore  it  behooves  us  to  make  it  as  simple 
as  possible,  so  that  as  many  as  possible  may 
understand  as  much  as  possible,  and  let  us 
never  lower  our  eyes  from  the  high  ideals  of 
broad  and  catholic  scholarship  in  science. 

Nothing  should  prevent  us  from  teaching 
chemistry  to  journeymen  in  machine-shops 
or  in  mills,  to  iron-  and  steel-workers,  to 
factory  hands,  to  everybody  within  reason 
who  wants  to  learn  it;  but  if  boys  and  girls 
are  planning  to  devote  themselves  to  chem- 
istry, let  us  see  to  it  that  their  minds  are 
adequately  ripened  by  cultural  study  to  pre- 
pare them  to  enter  the  portals  of  this  very 
learned  and  distinguished  profession. 

There  is,  nevertheless,  a  journeyman  side 
to  chemistry,  and  I  think  we  should  prepare 
for  it.  Laboratory  workers  in  routine  analysis 
are  needed,  and  they  can  be  trained  for  this  in 
schools.  Such  a  career  provides  a  fair  living, 
and  it  is  no  more  monotonous  than  keeping 
accounts.  If  these  journeymen  have  ambition 
and  a  real  desire  to  become  chemists,  that  is 
their  privilege  in  then*  leisure.  Those  who 
have  the  energy  and  character  to  study  by 
themselves  usually  have  the  good  taste  to  study 
more  than  one  subject,  and  we  need  not  worry 
about  their  education.  They  are  bound  to 
[2241 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

succeed.  Most  of  us,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  noses  only  for  the  donkey-path,  and  we 
are  disposed  to  follow  along  the  road  in  which 
we  have  been  trained  to  go.  If  we  have  been 
trained  as  laboratory  helpers,  without  the 
theory  and  the  vision  of  chemistry,  then  that 
is  what  we  shall  remain.  If  we  have  been 
trained  as  full-fledged  chemists,  then  that 
is  what  we  shall  acknowledge  ourselves  to  be, 
and  we  are  likely  to  order  our  lives  according 
to  the  standards  which  we  have  in  mind. 
This  brings  us  right  back  to  the  question 
that  we  asked  a  few  minutes  ago — What  man- 
ner of  men  will  our  chemists  be?  What  stand- 
ards of  culture,  of  art,  of  character,  and  of 
bearing  will  the  next  generation  have  in  mind 
as  indicating  the  chemist? 

This  is  a  matter  of  such  great  importance 
that  it  will  have  a  considerable  influence  upon 
whatever  civilization  is  to  come,  provided  the 
world  remains  free.  If  we  turn  out  mainly 
chemical  journeymen,  they  will  address  them- 
selves to  good,  tight  pipe-fitting,  and  they  may 
occasionally  develop  improvements  in  factory 
practice,  but  unless  their  imagination  is  stimu- 
lated in  youth  and  brought  into  function  in 
science,  we  cannot  expect  the  graces  of  life 
to  enter  industry. 

I  think  when  we  find,  for  instance,  a  better 
[225] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

name  for  a.  permeable  membrane,  that  it 
would  be  well  to  introduce  the  practice  of 
osmosis  into  the  class-room,  and  to  divide  the 
students  who  have  imagination  from  those 
who  have  not.  The  unimaginative  ones  should 
be  encouraged  to  take  the  laboratory  workers' 
short  course.  Let  them  become  chemists  by 
themselves  if  they  can.  But  the  imaginative 
ones,  the  boys  and  girls  who  are  gifted  with 
the  glory  of  fancy,  who  have  not  sloughed  off 
their  curiosity  during  the  years  at  school,  as  so 
many  of  them  do,  these  should  be  entitled  to 
the  privilege  of  becoming  chemists.  They 
must  have  a  sense  of  history,  of  people,  and  of 
things,  because  nowhere  is  nature  inanimate; 
and  if  we  do  not  understand  the  ways  of  peo- 
ple we  cannot  understand  the  ways  of  stuff. 
They  must  have  good  diction  and  facility  of 
expression,  because  whoever  lacks  in  this 
respect  is  an  offender  against  his  profession. 
He  degrades  it  by  his  own  shortcomings. 
And  without  facility  of  expression  his  most 
useful  faculty,  his  imagination,  is  crippled. 

Of  course,  men  will  call  themselves  whatever 
they  please.  We  cannot  legislate  titles.  But 
it  seems  to  me  of  vital  importance  that  only 
those  students  of  to-day  should  become 
chemists  who  are  properly  equipped  to  meet 
the  great  responsibilities  which  are  theirs  to 
[226]' 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

encounter.  It  is  the  coming  profession.  It 
must  detennine  for  us  in  the  future  what  we 
shall  eat  and  drink  and  wherewithal  we  shall 
be  clothed.  Whether  we  grow  as  an  industrial 
nation  or  sink  into  decrepitude  is  in  large 
measure  dependent  upon  our  chemists.  If 
we  grow,  It  will  be  because  they  are  men  of 
vision,  of  childlike  curiosity  and  unspoiled 
fancy;  men  of  taste,  of  discrimination,  who 
are  familiar  with  human  reactions  and  with  the 
graces  of  life.  They  will  be  men  whose  long- 
range  view  is  glorified  by  imagination.  They 
will  carry  the  subtle  art  of  the  teacher  into  the 
works  and  lead  the  men  and  women  engaged 
there  into  the  paths  of  understanding  and 
delight.  Then  work  in  the  factory  will  cease 
to  be  drudgery,  and  good  housing  conditions 
and  fair  wages  will  cease  to  be  the  maximum 
of  merit  demanded  of  employers — when  this 
enlightenment  prevails. 

There  is  one  great  quality  that  was  enjoyed 
in  medieval  days  that  is  lost  to  us.  It  was 
that  which  made  their  cathedrals  so  beautiful, 
their  fabrics  so  rich,  and  their  very  product 
so  enduring  and  strong.  Men  sang  at  their 
work,  because  they  found  joy  in  it.  Now  we 
have  different  customs,  different  conditions, 
different  problems,  but  in  the  very  measure 
that  our  men  and  women  who  constitute  parts 
[227] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

of  great  industrial  organizations  do  not  find 
pleasure  in  their  day's  work  we  have  degener- 
ated. If  we  would  be  great  in  industry  we 
must  make  our  industries  great  by  making 
our  workers  intelligent  and  ambitious  and  fine 
in  understanding.  We  must  make  it  possible 
for  them  not  only  to  produce  things,  but  to  see 
that  they  are  producing.  Therefore,  if  our 
chemists  and  engineers,  who  are  to  direct  our 
industries,  are  wise  men  and  so  illuminated 
that  they  can  show  a  light  ahead  to  those  who 
work  under  them,  we  may  look  for  the  dawn 
of  a  new  era  of  peace  and  good-will.  That 
will  be  the  day — and  may  God  speed  its  com- 
ing!— when  ideals  of  service  will  rule  in  our 
hearts. 


THE    PROFESSOR    EMERITUS 
TALKS 

THE  old  professor  emeritus  and  his  wife 
were  sitting  before  a  cozy  fire  in  their 
little  house.  They  lived  in  comfort 
in  the  college  town  where  the  old  man  had 
learned  patience  and  achieved  humility. 

The  president  of  the  college  was  not  a  gentle- 
man; he  was  a  lusty  shouter  for  one  of  the 
narrower  Christian  doctrines  and  a  noisy  foe 
of  the  Cigarette  Evil.  His  championship  of 
the  one  and  the  f  ulminations  against  the  other 
had  earned  him  the  favor  of  two  very  rich 
college  angels,  whose  frequent  contributions  to 
the  endowment  made  his  position  secure. 

The  professor  had  met  insult  and  scorn  and 
nagging  for  twenty  years;  he  was  accustomed 
to  it;  but  his  house  was  the  abode  of  peace. 
A  little  inheritance  had  lately  come  to  him,  so 
that  the  old  gentleman  was  in  easier  circum- 
stances than  he  had  been  before  his  retire- 
ment, and  his  influence  upon  the  students  was 
so  generally  admitted  to  be  wholesome  that  it 
16  [229] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

would  have  been  a  disadvantage  to  the  college 
had  the  testy  president  followed  the  dictates 
of  his  fancy  and  got  entirely  rid  of  him.  There 
would  also  have  been  trouble  with  the  alumni 
if  he  had  done  so. 

The  old  professor  emeritus  and  his  wife, 
as  we  have  observed,  were  sitting  before  a 
cozy  fire  in  their  little  house.  Dinner  was 
over  and  the  professor  was  smoking  his  pipe. 

"Why  don't  women  take  to  science?"  asked 
his  wife. 

"They  do,"  said  he.  "Look  at  all  the  girls 
that  are  going  into  biology  and  the  way  they 
are  becoming  chemists.  Thousands  of  them 
are  going  into  science." 

"Yes,  I  know  they  are,  but  nearly  all  of  them 
take  it  up  as  they  do  stenography,  bookkeep- 
ing, buying-agencies,  tea-rooms,  or  anything 
else  to  make  a  living.  Then  if  they  marry 
they  drop  it.  It  is  only  a  makeshift.  But 
I'm  thinking  of  science  as  a  gentleman's  sport, 
as  you  put  it.  Why  not  a  lady's  sport?  You 
say,  'Given  a  gentleman  and  leisure  and  the 
opportunities  of  to-day,  and  science  is  bound 
to  succeed  as  the  king  of  sports.'  Now,  that 
very  condition  of  affluence  and  leisure  exists, 
and  has  existed  among  women  for  nearly  two 
generations.  Well,  why  haven't  they  taken 
up  science?  What  is  there  in  auction  bridge 
[  230  ] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 


compared  to  the  surprises  of  the  laboratory 
table?     Here  is  a  great  leisure  class,  in  affluence 
for  fifty  years,   always  growing  richer,   and 
always  having  less  in  the  way  of  household 
duties;   I  mean  the  women  of  fashion.    Why 
have  they  never  taken  to  science?  " 
"How  about  Christian  Science?" 
"Now,  Peter,  you  must  be  good.     I  asked 
you  a  straight  question." 

"I  declare,  my  dear,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, "it's  not  so  simple,  after  all.  You're 
right,  though,  science  is  a  gentleman's  sport; 
in  it  he  can  'bring  down  game  that  nobody 
else  has  ever  bagged,'  as  Robert  Wood  says. 
That  is,  it  is  an  ideal  occupation  for  gentlemen 
of  leisure,  and  yet  they  haven't  taken  to  it 
with  that  avidity  that  I  expected  they  would 
twenty-five 'years  ago.  But  give  them  time; 
they  will,  I'm  sure  they  will.  Not  the  little, 
foolish,  low-grade  sons  of  men  who  are  rich  by 
accident;  they  are  only  incidentals,  whose 
fathers  were  lucky.  They  ponstitute  the 
comedy  element  in  education.  If  we  could 
only  bring  Aristophanes  to  life  again,  he 
would  show  them  up;  and  a  grand  thing  it 
would  be!  But  the  real  men,  the  young  fel- 
lows of  good  mind  who  are  bound  to  amount 
to  something,  I  can  see  them  drifting  over 
into  science  more  and  more  every  year." 
[231] 


"These  women  you  refer  to,  instead  of 
spending  twenty  per  cent,  of  their  time  at  calls, 
twenty  per  cent,  at  cards,  twenty  per  cent,  at 
dinners  and  lunches,  twenty  per  cent,  at  sports 
and  dancing — let's  see,  that's  eighty  per  cent. 
and  I  haven't  half  covered  the  ground — • 
instead  of  these  things,  they  should,  at  least 
half  of  them,  have  laboratories  of  their  own. 
Well,  they  haven't;  hardly  one  in  a  million 
has.  And  I  see  it's  up  to  me  to  explain  it." 
Here  he  puffed  his  pipe  for  some  time  in 
silence.  "I  think  I  can,"  he  continued. 
"You  see,  such  women  are  not  selects;  they 
are  incidentals.  They  had  luck  in  marrying. 
They  are  not  chosen  from  good  breeds;  they 
were  just  run-of-mine  girls.  They  married 
Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry.  Since  then  Dick  has 
grown  rich,  while  Tom  and  Harry  have  just 
got  along.  Dick  has  proved  himself  the 
exceptional  man  in  grasping  opportunities. 
He  is  one  in  a  hundred,  or  rather  one  in  a 
thousand,  whereas  his  wife  is  not.  In  most 
instances  the  exceptional  woman  marries  an 
average  man,  not  a  man  gifted  with  the 
ability  to  make  money,  and  she  is  too  busy 
with  her  housework  to  be  classed  as  a  person 
of  leisure.  Your  leisure-class  women  are  not 
of  a  high  type,  if  you  average  them.  They're 
adaptable  and  they  take  to  luxury  as  ducks 
[232] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

take  to  water,  but  for  science  you  need  more 
than  that." 

"Well,"  said  the  old  lady,  "when  I  went  to 
New  York  last  winter  I  met  a  group  of  women, 
women  of  leisure,  and  they  were  just  what 
you  say  these  women  are  not.  They  were  the 
exceptionals,  the  ones  in  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand.  They  had  understanding  and  abil- 
ity, they  had  trained  minds,  they  were — " 

"Why  certainly,"  admitted  the  professor. 
"Among  four  million  people  they  are  sure  to 
find  one  another  out  and  forgather.  They 
were  not  young  enough  to  have  availed  them- 
selves of  the  present  advantages,  and  probably 
not  one  in  five  hundred  of  them  has  a  master's 
degree.  The  great  majority  did  not  even  go 
to  college,  and  to  get  a  sense  of  science  you 
must  begin  young.  What  their  daughters  will 
do  is  an  interesting  question.  But  the  great 
leisure  class  of  women  to-day  is  composed  of 
mere  incidentals  and  not  of  selects.  The  se- 
lects will  develop  in  time  and  they  will  take 
their  place  in  science.  It  is  a  grand  sport 
and  the  women  and  men  will  soon  be  engaged 
in  it;  women  and  men  together.  It  will  be 
an  aristocracy." 


DORINDA'S    JOY 

WE,  Theophilus  and  Jane  and  I,  were 
talking  about  the  Robinsons.  The- 
ophilus and  Jane  are  sound  in  Chris- 
tian doctrine;  they  say  grace  before  meat, 
have  family  prayers,  and  hold  to  orthodoxy 
as  the  handmaiden  of  righteousness.  If  I  had 
not  always  known  them  I  might  be  a  little 
frightened  at  them,  because  our  angles  of 
vision  differ.  As  it  is,  Jane  and  I  always  agree 
(or  at  least  Jane  persuades  me  that  we  do), 
and  Theophilus  and  I  always  make  allowances 
for  each  other. 

The  Robinsons,  John  and  Dorinda,  are  warm 
friends  of  Theophilus  and  Jane.  I  know  them 
but  slightly,  nevertheless  I  shall  speak  with 
the  familiarity  of  a  closer  acquaintance.  John 
has  a  good  business,  and  is  doing  well,  although 
his  income  does  not  make  him  rich.  Dorinda 
is  rich  in  her  own  right;  her  income  is  probably 
thrice  John's;  nevertheless,  John  maintains  the 
family,  so  that  Dorinda's  income  is  set  aside. 
This  is  in  accord  with  John's  wholesome  view 
[234] 


that  it  behooves  him  to  care  for  and  support 
his  own  family. 

In  our  discussion  Theophilus  said :  "Dorinda 
is  a  woman  of  very  fine  character.  She  has 
great  nobility  of  spirit.  For  instance,  she 
would  like  very  much  to  have  an  automobile. 
Living  where  they  do,  it  would  be  a  great  con- 
venience to  her,  and  we  know  she  wants  one 
in  the  worst  way.  But  John  says,  'No';  he 
declares  that  his  income  does  not  warrant  the 
expense,  and  Dorinda,  like  the  good  and  du- 
tiful wife  that  she  is,  not  only  submits,  but 
does  it  gladly.  She  neither  complains  nor 
protests.  Of  course,  she  herself  could  main- 
tain half  a  dozen  automobiles  if  she  wanted  to, 
and  yet  you  never  hear  a  complaint  from  her 
because  she  has  none." 

"The  incidence  of  comment,"  I  replied, 
"seems  to  be  on  John  rather  than  on  Dorinda. 
That  she  meets  a  difficult  and  disagreeable  sit- 
uation without  wincing  is  doubtless  creditable, 
and  it  would  be  unfair  to  her  to  refer  to  her 
submission  as  a  lazy  way  of  avoiding  trouble." 

Both  Theophilus  and  Jane  agreed  in  unison 
that  there  was  nothing  lazy  about  Dorinda. 

"But  as  for  John,"  I  continued,  "there  is 
an  expression  which  fits  him  perfectly  and 
which  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  situation — 
John  is  a  hog!" 

[235] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

By  this  it  was  evident  that  I  had  advent- 
ured into  trouble.  Theophilus  and  Jane  were 
unanimous  in  protesting  that  I  failed  entirely 
to  understand  the  situation.  There  is,  they 
assured  me,  perfect  accord  between  John  and 
Dorinda,  and  John  is  kindness  itself.  John 
is  a  splendid  fellow — generous,  strong,  fine, 
noble.  The  vision  of  John  was  illuminated 
with  adjectives  of  praise. 

I  remained  unconvinced;  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  was  John's  pompous  vanity,  and  that 
alone,  which  debarred  his  wife  from  the  enjoy- 
ment of  what  was  rightfully  hers. 

The  many  protests  which  followed  made 
it  evident  that  we  were  out  of  sympathy  in 
regard  to  John;  and  Jane,  who  is  something 
of  a  diplomat  and  something  of  a  psychologist, 
changed  the  subject  to  the  heresy  trials  in 
Atlanta,  with  a  view  to  driving  the  thought 
of  John  out  of  my  head  by  the  mention  of  the 
heresy-hunters. 

On  the  way  home  that  evening  my  thoughts 
reverted  again  to  Dorinda.  Never  having 
been  a  woman,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  I  cannot 
tell  how  I  should  have  considered  John,  had 
skirts  encompassed  me.  But  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Dorinda  may  be  blissfully  happy  in  her 
submission.  She  knows  that  she  has  this 
strong  and  kindly  lord  who  decides  for  her  and 
[236] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

keeps  her  from  error;  she  knows  that  he  is 
trustworthy,  and  her  heart  is  all  aflame  with 
the  feeling  that  he  loves  her.  Of  what  use  is  a 
motor-car,  save  as  an  incidental  convenience? 
And  of  what  trifling  value  is  the  convenience, 
compared  to  her  repose  in  John's  judgment 
and  her  faith  in  him?  She  enjoys  restfulness 
of  a  quality  such  as  no  selfish  woman  can  pro- 
vide for  herself.  They  have,  between  them, 
"unity  in  essentials,  liberty  in  non-essentials, 
and  in  all  things  charity." 

John,  of  course,  determines  the  essentials, 
which  he  is  quite  well  able  to  do.  And 
Dorinda — who  is  nobody's  fool — agrees  with 
him.  Probably  she  is  very  happy. 

Nevertheless,  I  think  John  is  a  hog. 


AT    THE    CLUB 

HE  is  famous  for  his  contributions  to 
mathematics  and  physics.  He  is  the 
head  of  a  great  research  laboratory,  and 
usually,  when  he  appears  at  the  club,  he  is 
preoccupied.  Sometimes  he  looks  up  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  and  on  such  occasions  I 
seek  the  chance  to  sit  down  with  him.  Thus 
yesterday: 

"Did  you  hear 's  lecture  last  night?"  he 

asked. 

"No,"  I  replied. 

He  mentioned  incidentally  that  the  men  of 
Holland  have  increased  one  inch  in  stature 
during  the  past  thirty  years,  owing  to  better 
living  conditions.  "It  occurred  to  me  that 
those  Dutchmen  were  developing  themselves 
the  wrong  way,"  he  continued.  "They  are 
growing  more  expensive  to  maintain  and  de- 
creasing in  efficiency  by  taking  on  size.  They 
should  strive  to  be  small  rather  than  big.  How 
to  accomplish  this  is  a  problem  in  physiology, 
and  if  Jacques  Loeb  lives  long  enough  he  will 
probably  solve  it.  What  I  have  been  consid- 
[238] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

ering  is  how  the  men  of  Holland — and  all 
others,  for  that  matter — would  gain  profit  if 
they  could  achieve  a  height  of  one-half  their 
present  stature.  That  would  be  something 
worth  while!  An  inch  added  is  only  a  burden 
increased. 

"Since  their  volume  would  decrease  as  the 
cube  of  their  length,  they  would  weigh  only 
one-eighth  as  much  as  at  present.  Their 
strength,  on  the  other  hand,  which  decreases 
as  the  square  of  their  height,  would  be  one- 
quarter  of  their  present  puissance.  That  is, 
their  strength  in  proportion  to  their  weight 
would  be  twice  that  which  it  is  now.  They 
could  run  twice  as  fast  and  jump  twice  as  far. 
The  reason  why  Leonardo  da  Vinci  failed  with 
his  flying-machine  was  because  he  lacked  the 
strength  to  drive  an  apparatus  that  could  carry 
his  weight.  But  a  well-proportioned  three- 
foot  man  could  fly  like  an  angel  with  a  simple 
device  which  any  good  mechanic  could  con- 
struct, and  propel  it  by  his  own  power. 

"Half-sized  persons  would  consume  but 
one-eighth  of  the  present  portions  of  food,  and 
since  muscular  strength  has  but  little  to  do 
with  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  even  so  densely 
peopled  a  country  as  Holland  would  have  no 
need  to  import  foodstuffs.  Or,  if  conditions 
that  we  regard  as  normal  were  to  continue, 
[2391 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

only  one-eighth  of  the  present  number  of  men 
would  be  required  in  agriculture. 

"The  size  of  buildings  is  limited  by  the 
strength  of  materials,  therefore,  those  which 
to-day  are  filled  to  capacity  would  then  house 
eight  tunes  as  many  persons.  Materials  for 
clothing  would,  in  the  main,  be  reduced  to 
one-quarter  of  the  present  requirements,  and 
the  need  of  coal  for  heating  would  decrease  in 
the  same  ratio. 

"These  advantages,  however,  are  merely 
incidental  economies,  and  are  almost  negligible 
compared  with  the  greater  gains  which  would 
accrue  from  this  decrease  in  stature.  Nerve 
sensation  travels  only  at  the  rate  of  one  hun- 
dred and  twelve  feet  a  second,  and,  with  dis- 
tances reduced  as  I  have  intimated,  these 
smaller  men  and  women  would  be  much  quicker 
in  mind,  besides  being  more  agile  in  body. 
They  would  have  a  better  all-'round  mental 
equipment  than  we  and  better  chances  for 
enlightenment. 

"  We  grow  old  because  of  the  hardening  of  our 
arteries  and  the  degeneration  of  our  nerves. 
In  arteries  the  motive  pressure  needed  to  cause 
the  blood  flow  is  proportionate  to  their  length. 
Now  the  strength  of  a  tube  increases  as  its 
diameter  diminishes,  while  friction  increases 
as  its  length.  Therefore,  if  one  man  is  half  as 
[240] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

tall  as  another  and  his  arteries  are  half  as  long 
and  twice  as  strong,  it  would  take  only  one- 
fourth  as  much  blood  pressure  to  operate  him, 
so  that  his  arteries  should  endure  four  times  as 
long.  A  similar  strengthening  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  his  nerve  tissue  should  warrant  the 
belief  that  the  smaller  man  would  enjoy  fully 
three  times  the  length  of  days  of  his  more 
cumbersome  fellow  and  that  his  normal  life 
would  be  two  hundred  and  ten  years. 

"It  has  always  been  the  noblest  desire  of 
man  to  grow  in  the  image  of  the  Deity,  and  the 
way  to  do  this  is  by  mastery  of  self.  Since, 
then,  strength  and  power  increase  as  size 
diminishes,  it  is  evident  that  when  the  dimen- 
sions reach  zero  the  power  becomes  infinite. 
So  we  err  when  we  consider  infinite  power  to 
be  associated  with  vast  stature  or  size.  This 
leads  us  away  from  the  true  conception  of  it. 
Infinite  power  is  compatible  only  with  the 
minutest  particle.  The  Still  Small  Voice  of 
Holy  Writ  intimates  this  to  us." 


SOCIAL    SPOT    CASH 

SUPPOSE  you  bid  me  come  to  your  house 
to  dinner,  and  suppose  I  accept,  and, 
feeling  that  I  shall  repay  you  by  feed- 
ing you  at  some  future  time,  I  give  myself  no 
concern  over  my  obligation  to  you  on  that 
occasion.  Let  us  suppose  that  I  count  my 
duty  done  by  being  properly  clothed  and 
punctual.  You  have  asked  others  to  be 
present  with  whom  you  are  on  pleasant  terms, 
and  you  are  anxious  that  they  think  well  of 
you.  I  have  no  tongue  for  small  talk  and 
can't  bother  about  trifles;  you  are  giving  the 
dinner-party  and  are  supposed  to  know  what 
you  want.  If  you  want  me,  you  must  take  me 
as  I  am.  I'll  come  and  behave  properly — 
by  which  you  are  to  understand  that  I  shall 
not  get  drunk  or  mess  my  food;  you  mustn't 
expect  more.  So  I  proceed  to  spoil  your 
dinner-party  by  not  doing  anything.  I'm 
tired,  anyway — or  at  least  I  think  I  am — 
and  by  my  dull  and  boorish  bearing  I  make 
every  one  near  me  uncomfortable.  Those 
new  neighbors  whom  you  have  at  your  house 
[242] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

for  the  first  time  are  very  interesting  people; 
it  is  a  good  and  illuminating  thing  to  know 
them;  but  after  that  disagreeable  evening 
with  me  they  are  calmly  but  firmly  resolved 
that  your  house  is  a  place  to  avoid.  The 
professor  whom  you  have  always  wanted  to 
know  better,  now  in  town  on  consultation, 
was  fortunately  able  to  be  present;  he  said 
he  would  be  very  glad  to  come,  but  he  was  not 
glad  when  he  went  away.  You  see,  I  was 
there  and  I  made  talk  impossible;  my  heavy, 
uninteresting  silence  killed  all  joy.  I  satisfy 
my  previous  consciousness  by  saying  to  my- 
self that  I  was  not  interested  in  the  subjects 
under  discussion,  and  I  give  you  credit  for 
having  fed  me  well.  Then,  having  given 
you  a  social  black  eye,  I  make  things  what  I 
call  even  by  inviting  you  to  spoil  a  second  and 
otherwise  good  evening  by  boring  yourself 
with  me. 

It  is  clear  that  in  behaving  in  the  manner 
just  described  I  have  made  an  error;  and  the 
error  is  one  frequently  made.  The  purpose  of 
this  writing  is  to  discover,  if  possible,  what  the 
nature  of  this  error  is,  and  to  find  an  expression 
for  it  that  we  may  all  understand — not  only 
you  who  have  suffered  by  it,  but  I,  who,  to 
keep  myself  in  the  character,  must  call  myself 
the  "innocent"  cause  of  it. 
[243] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

The  answer  is  neither  involved  nor  far  to 
seek.  Social  intercourse  is  commerce,  in  a  way. 
We  must  pay  for  what  we  get,  but  general 
welfare  and  comity  require  that  we  pay  spot 
cash.  We  can't  pay  in  money  because  that 
is  not  current  social  coin.  If  the  conventions 
did  not  bar  the  way  and  make  it  an  insult, 
it  would  be  far  better  for  you  if,  on  the  un- 
happy night  when  I  spoiled  your  party,  I  had 
taken  out  my  pocketbook  and  laid  down  upon 
the  table  the  cost  of  the  food  and  drink  and 
service.  You  would  have  been  rid  of  me  so 
much  sooner,  and  you  would  not  have  been 
called  upon  to  endure  the  second  evening  with 
me.  But  if  money — dollars  and  cents — is 
not  current  social  coin,  neither  are  food  and 
drink;  although  in  this  respect  convention 
lags  far  and  away  behind.  Convention  does 
not  forbid  me  to  do  the  very  thing  that  I  have 
assumed  to  do — to  eat  your  food  to-day  and 
take  a  long  credit,  paying  you  back  in  kind 
next  week  or  next  month.  In  point  of  fact, 
that  is  not  paying  you  back  at  all,  as  we 
have  seen. 

The  only  way  that  I  can  possibly  repay  you 
is  to  make  my  presence  worth  while  and  an 
advantage  to  you.  The  debt  should  be  paid 
before  I  leave  your  threshold,  and  I  must  have 
intelligence  enough  to  know  how  to  pay  it. 
[244] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

By  the  miscalculation  that  you  made  when 
you  invited  me  in  the  first  instance,  you 
may  have  asked  some  one  you  thought  to 
be  a  brilliant  talker  to  come,  who  turns  out 
on  this  occasion  to  be  one  of  those  dread- 
ful creatures  that  prove  the  wisdom  of  all 
misanthropy  by  combating  everybody  and 
everything,  and  grating  upon  the  nerves  of 
every  mortal  soul  present.  If  I  cannot  quiet 
hun  or  draw  his  breeziness  upon  me  alone 
so  that  others  have  an  opportunity  to  enjoy 
themselves,  it  behooves  me  to  sit  still  and 
be  good.  They  also  serve  who  only  sit  still 
and  are  good.  But  "good"  means,  in  the 
circle,  a  part  of  whatever  good-fellowship  is 
available. 

When  you  open  your  house  to  your  friends 
you  do  a  brave  and  a  gracious  thing.  You 
show  yourself,  your  training,  the  measure  of 
your  education,  and  the  things  of  which  you  are 
ashamed.  Your  intimate  self  is  made  visible. 
You  may  put  on  airs  for  your  own  satisfaction, 
but  you  know,  and  I  know,  that  anybody  can 
see  through  them.  Your  house  is  yourself,  or 
your  wife's  self;  and  surely  there  is  no  cause 
for  shame  in  admitting  that  hers  is  the  master 
mind  when  the  day's  work  is  over  and  you 
are  at  home.  This  is  true  of  so  many  men  of 
the  very  best  sort  that  it  will  do  you  no  harm 
17  [  245  ] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

to  admit  it.  And  it  will  do  you  no  good  to 
deny  it. 

Suppose  a  clumsy  maid  spills  a  plate  of  soup. 
If  clothes  are  damaged  it  is  mortifying,  and 
it  may  mean  that  some  work  must  be  done 
to  the  floor  to  repair  the  injury;  otherwise 
it  is  not  a  serious  occurrence.  But  if  I,  or 
any  other  of  your  guests,  offend  any  one, 
then  harm  is  done,  for  which  you  are  in  a  way 
responsible,  and  which  rubbing  and  scrubbing 
will  not  repair.  So  the  responsibility  of  every 
guest  is  a  heavy  one.  You  have  bidden  them 
come  inside  the  line  of  your  defenses,  and  your 
social  reputation  is  in  their  hands.  No  matter 
how  great  your  effort  or  expense,  every  one 
should  then  and  there  pay  back  in  the  coin 
of  agreeable  good-fellowship,  as  nearly  as  he 
can,  in  full  for  all  value  received. 

Social  reciprocity,  the  idea  that  if  you  feed 
me  I  must  feed  you,  or  if  you  entertain  me  I 
must  entertain  you,  is  born  of  social  ineffi- 
ciency. Who  the  first  person  of  fashion  or 
quality  was  who  devised  the  present  system 
of  food  exchanges  as  the  fulfilment  of  social 
amenities  we  shall  never  know;  but  it  is  a  fair 
guess  that  he  or  she  was  feeble  of  mind  and 
dull  of  wit.  Or,  if  the  custom  became  current 
by  common  consent,  then  the  custom  itself  is 
a  severe  indictment  of  dullness  against  that 
[246] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

part  of  society  which  gives  the  tone  and  sets 
the  styles,  because  it  furnishes  the  example 
which  the  rest  of  the  world  accepts  and 
emulates. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  deferred  social 
credit;  the  only  real  payment  is  in  spot  cash. 


THE    GREAT    PUPPET-SHOW 

CDIES  and  Gentlemen!  Come  one,  come 
all,  to  The  Great  Puppet-show!  By 
means  of  these  few  little  dolls,  made  of 
wood  and  painted  in  different  colors  so  that 
you  may  know  them  apart,  we  shall  enact 
comedies  and  tragedies  of  life  and  death,  joy 
and  sorrow,  pleasure  and  pain,  right  before 
your  eyes  and  upon  this  little  table.  Look  as 
carefully  as  you  please;  we  shall  use  no  sleight- 
of-hand,  nor  have  we  any  secret  apparatus. 
"The  play's  the  thing,"  as  Hamlet  said,  and 
we  shall  prove  it.  It  will  make  or  mar  these 
little  dolls. 

Let  us  begin  with  this  blue  one.  Observe 
that  it  has  a  blue  coat  painted  on  and  its  hair 
has  some  white  in  with  the  black.  That 
makes  it  a  grown-up  manikin.  Observe  how 
its  little  arms  swing  free  on  the  pins  that 
hold  them  on.  It  stands  up  straight,  and  as  I 
make  it  swing  its  arms  there  is  no  little  swagger 
to  it.  Rather  a  well-contented  and  vain  doll, 
I  should  say.  See  how  its  hat  sets  on  the 
back  of  its  head!  He's  ready  to  meet  you 
[248] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

at  any  time  and  he  will  match  his  wit  against 
yours,  sir,  or  yours,  madam.  Things  are  evi- 
dently going  very  well  with  him.  His  back  is 
a  bit  rounded,  but  that  does  not  hurt  him. 
It  is  the  place  where  he  carries  his  experiences. 

Now  let  us  take  the  pink  doll,  a  little  smaller 
than  the  other.  Notice  that  it  contains  a 
magnet.  That  is  a  convention  of  the  puppet- 
show;  all  the  female  dolls  contain  a  magnet. 
There's  a  little  gray  in  its  hair,  too,  so  it  is — 
you  have  guessed  right,  little  boy,  the  boy 
down  here  in  front  of  me  says  it  is  the  wife 
of  the  other  dolly.  He  is  a  bright  boy.  Her 
arms  swing  free,  too,  and  she  stands  erect 
and  holds  her  head  up;  a  well-contented  and 
happy  puppet  she  is. 

Here  is  another  one  in  white  with  a  magnet, 
quite  a  bright,  new  magnet,  you  observe, 
and  she  is  smaller  than  either  of  them.  Let 
us  put  a  little  round  hat  upon  her  head  to  dress 
her  up.  It  is  a  very  pretty  puppet,  you  see, 
with  light,  curly  hair.  This  is  the  daughter 
of  the  other  two. 

Now  let  us  start  them  off  upon  their  jour- 
ney across  the  table — which  is  their  journey 
through  life,  for  when  they  get  over  to  the  other 
side  of  the  table  they  fall  off  and  that  is  the 
end  of  them.  Most  of  them  fall  off  before 
they  get  to  the  other  side.  It's  a  short  life 
[249] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

and  a  lively  one  for  the  puppets!  For  our 
little  friends  who  are  starting  out  it  is  a  smooth 
road  across  the  table,  and  from  present  appear- 
ances it  seems  as  though  they  would  have  a 
pleasant  journey. 

Now  that  they  are  started  and  all  is  going 
well  with  them,  let  us  leave  them  to  take  care 
of  themselves  for  a  while  and  set  up  a  number 
of  other  little  white  dolls  at  the  side,  here. 
We  want  variety,  so  let's  put  square  caps 
upon  their  heads  to  dress  them  up. 

Hello!  hello!  here's  trouble  right  away! 
What  can  be  the  matter  with  the  first  white 
doll  with  its  father  and  mother?  See  how  its 
head  droops.  Look!  It  puts  its  arms  about 
its  mother  and  then  about  its  father  and  rests 
its  head  upon  his  shoulder — it  must  be  crying. 
Why,  it's  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff.  Can't  you 
see?  It's  the  cap.  All  the  others  are  wearing 
square  ones  and  hers  is  round.  Let's  see  if 
we  are  not  right.  Here  is  a  little  square  cap; 
I  take  her  round  one  off  and  put  this  square 
one  on,  and,  presto!  Look  at  her  now! 
Straight  as  an  arrow  and  happy  as  a  lark. 
The  whole  family  is  in  sunshine  again. 

Now,   hush!     Let  us  very  quietly  play  a 

little  trick.     I  change  the  caps  on  the  row 

of  white  dolls  on  the  side,  and  put  on  in  the 

place  of  the  square  ones  long,  pointed  ones — 

[250] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

fools'  caps;  and  I  make  little  fools  of  them. 
Don't  they  look  silly?  But  bless  my  soul,  the 
family  is  upset  again!  Little  white  doll  is  all 
of  a  tremble  and  will  not  be  comforted  until 
she,  too,  has  a  fools'  cap.  Let  us  put  one  on 
her  head  for  a  minute  and  then  stop  this  worry 
about  fashions  and  styles  by  taking  away  the 
rows  of  white  dolls.  They're  not  very  inter- 
esting, anyway. 

The  family,  you  observe,  goes  along  and 
every  one  is  merry  again.  The  blue  doll  seems 
to  be  busy  picking  things  up.  That  must  be 
a  fortune  he  is  gathering  in.  The  white  doll 
seems  rather  big  for  those  clothes;  let's  dress 
her  over  again  and  put  long  skirts  on  her. 
There  we  are!  She's  quite  the  young  lady 
now  and  very  smart  in  appearance.  See  how 
the  blue  one  throws  some  of  his  fortune  upon 
her.  It  is  composed  of  little  grains  of  gold 
and  they  stick  fast.  She  looks  very  rich 
with  the  bright  gold  sparkling  on  her  dress. 
I'm  afraid  the  blue  doll  will  overdo  the  thing, 
he  is  so  very  energetic.  The  pink  one  is  busy 
covering  herself  with  gold  spots,  too.  Seems 
to  me  they  are  all  overdoing  it,  but  we  shall 
have  to  let  them  go;  I  don't  know  how  to 
stop  them. 

Well,  while  they  are  busy  with  their  own 
devices  let  us  see  what  else  we  can  find  in  the 
[251] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

drawer.  Aha!  Here's  an  odd-looking  puppet. 
A  red-and-black  one.  What  odd  eyes  it  has! 
They  are  made  of  iron  tacks  driven  into  its 
head.  I  don't  see  any  sign  of  a  heart  painted 
on  him  anywhere,  and  there  are  sharp  spikes 
on  the  inside  of  his  hands  and  arms.  There  is 
a  cruel  spike  sticking  out  from  his  breast,  too. 
He  isn't  made  right,  somehow,  for  his  black 
paint  rubs  off  upon  whatever  touches  him. 
Just  look  at  my  fingers!  I  shall  put  him 
down  upon  the  table  and  ask  you  to  excuse 
me  for  a  minute  while  I  wash  this  black  paint 
off  my  hands — so. 

Well,  well,  well,  what  a  busy  table  this  is! 
Everything  is  topsy-turvy!  The  white  doll 
has  left  the  blue  and  the  pink  ones  and  gone 
over  to  the  black-and-red  one.  Those  iron 
tacks  that  he  has  for  eyes,  and  the  magnet  in 
her,  are  what  did  the  business.  Oh  my,  oh 
my!  Those  sharp  spikes  are  digging  into  her 
and  she  is  getting  all  smeared  over  with  black. 
And  look  at  the  blue  and  pink  dolls !  See  them 
flop  around!  The  blue  one  is  throwing  gold- 
dust  after  her  to  bring  her  back,  but  it  doesn't 
bring  her.  Just  watch  them  bound  about! 
Aren't  they  funny?  That  is  because  the 
white  one  has  left  them.  There  they  go, 
up  in  the  air  and  down  again — ah,  now  the 
blue  one  has  fallen  off  the  table!  And  now  the 
[2521 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

pink  one,  she's  gone,  too.  That's  the  end 
of  them.  Then  let's  watch  the  white  one. 
The  red-and-black  one  is  casting  her  away 
from  him.  He  has  rubbed  off  all  the  gold 
from  her  and  is  trying  to  push  her  off  the 
table.  But  she  won't  go.  Watch  her  fight  to 
stay  on.  There!  Now  she  is  free  from  him 
and  has  run  over  to  the  center.  She  certainly 
is  all  mussed  up  and  bedraggled,  isn't  she? 
Let's  clean  her  up  and  put  a  brown  dress  upon 
her,  in  the  place  of  that  dirty  white  one.  So. 
Now  she  is  all  clean  and  neat.  Looks  pretty, 
too,  doesn't  she?  There  she  goes  straight 
ahead  along  her  way  across  the  table.  Now, 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  please  come  over  to  this 
side,  so  that  as  she  proceeds  she  may  be  facing 
you.  Please  look  very  carefully  at  her  fore- 
head; watch  her  brow.  There  we  are!  See 
it,  everybody?  I  knew  you  would.  It  is  a 
bright  and  shining  light  that  you  see.  I 
thought  it  would  come. 

That  is  the  end  of  the  performance. 


AFTERWORD 

THESE  essays  are  the  children  of  such 
varying  moods  and  fancies  that  in  at- 
tempting to  write  a  preface  to  them  I 
found  myself  courting  failure;  for  every  effort 
was  futile.  We  had  no  common  ground  for  dis- 
course because  I  was  bound  to  take  for  granted 
from  the  first  page  of  the  book  that  you  had  not 
yet  read  what  follows  it.  Over  here,  at  the 
end,  I  make  bold  to  claim  the  privilege  of  a 
reading  and  writing  acquaintance  with  you 
in  the  belief  that  you  have  had  the  patience 
to  wander  along  with  me  on  the  ways  of  dis- 
cussion until  now,  when  we  have  reached 
our  journey's  end.  This  is  more  to  my 
liking  than  to  cry  up  my  wares  to  you  in  a 
preface. 

With  one  exception,  everything  recorded 
here  has  already  appeared  in  print,  although 
some  of  the  papers  reached  this  distinction 
with  difficulty.  Of  all  the  editors  of  periodi- 
cals who  read  "The  Road  to  Arcady"  only 
one  was  willing  to  accept  it,  and  that  on 
[254] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

condition  that  it  be  compressed  into  two 
short  pages.  I  did  not  comply  with  his 
request.  The  Percolator  is  the  official  bulletin 
of  the  Chemists'  Club,  and  such  papers  as 
made  their  first  appearance  in  it  were  written 
while  I  was  its  editor.  "The  Great  Puppet- 
show"  had  a  long  and  unfruitful  experience 
backward  and  forward  in  the  mails  until  I 
put  it  into  a  column  of  odds  and  ends  which  I 
conducted  for  a  parish  paper  out  of  friendship 
for  the  minister  and  the  editor. 

After  several  years'  practice  in  industrial 
chemistry  I  engaged  in  business,  and  during 
that  time  I  wanted  to  write  and  planned  to 
write,  and  often  tried  to  do  so,  but  somehow 
never  got  started.  My  friend  Lafcadio  Hearn 
was  insistent  rather  than  urgent  that  I  should, 
but  I  satisfied  myself  with  the  lazy  resolu- 
tion that  whenever  I  had  something  to  say  I 
would  say  it.  So  a  quarter  of  a  century  passed 
by,  and  it  was  only  when  the  editor  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  accepted  "Why  Not?"  and 
came  to  see  me  and  asked  for  more  that  I 
had  any  warrant  to  feel  my  literary  oats. 
From  that  time  on  I  have  constantly  had 
something  in  the  making,  thanks  to  encourage- 
ment from  the  good  lord  of  The  Atlantic.  In 
1915  I  gave  up  business,  and  since  then  have 
addressed  myself  to  writing,  chiefly  on  the 
[255] 


applications  of  chemistry  to  industry  and 
to  every  -  day  life.  This  may  explain  the 
chemical  slant  which  characterizes  some  of 
the  pages. 

"Science  in  the  Humanities"  and  "Chemists 
of  the  Future"  were  adapted  from  lectures. 
The  former  was  delivered  at  the  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  and  later  at  Columbia 
and  Cornell  universities.  "Chemists  of  the 
Future"  was  made  up  from  notes  of  a  lecture 
given  at  an  annual  meeting  of  the  Associa- 
tion of  Science  Teachers  of  New  Jersey. 

"Saul  of  Tarsus"  had  some  difficulty  hi 
finding  acceptance,  but  it  finally  landed  in 
The  North  American  Review.  A  lively  cor- 
respondence followed  its  appearance,  prin- 
cipally with  clergymen.  One  said  he  believed 
it  to  be  sound,  but  could  not  preach  it  because 
of  restrictions  imposed  upon  him;  that  his 
field  of  usefulness  was  circumscribed,  and, 
if  he  were  to  step  out  of  bounds,  whatever 
influence  he  had  would  be  made  of  no  effect. 
Another  praised  it  anonymously,  and  still 
another  said  it  was  "partly  right,"  and  sent 
copies  to  a  number  of  his  colleagues.  Others 
again  blasted  me  with  nearly  all  the  names 
in  the  calendar — and  this  does  not  refer  to 
the  calendar  of  saints.  I  had  some  hesitation 
in  including  it  in  this  book  because  it  annoys 
[256] 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

some  of  my  very  good  friends  who  abide 
within  the  fold  of  orthodoxy;  but  it  was  not 
meant  for  them.  It  was  written  for  out- 
siders, to  express  the  belief  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  Christianity  for  us  all,  even  if  we 
cannot  get  our  tickets  certified  at  ecclesiastical 
headquarters.  And  I  do  not  count  myself 
as  gifted  with  the  might  to  enter  successfully 
into  the  lists  with  intrenched  orthodoxy. 
Not  far  from  my  house  is  a  new  and  beautiful 
church  over  the  portals  of  which  are  the  statues 
of  four  men:  St.  Paul,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
Martin  Luther,  and  Phillips  Brooks.  I  do 
not  doubt  but  that  the  pious  people  who  caused 
those  effigies  to  be  placed  there  are  inspired 
with  the  belief  that  they  represent  a  harmoni- 
ous symphony  of  history.  My  imagination 
is  lacking  in  the  power  to  hear  this.  It  hears 
the  four  in  discussion,  but  the  sound  is  not 
harmonious. 

I  am  afraid,  too,  that  in  "Waste"  I  have 
laid  myself  open  to  a  charge  of  hypocrisy. 
It  may  be  a  fair  question  to  ask  you  whether 
you  are  worth  the  wealth  you  expend  on 
yourself  or  not,  but  I  feel  that  I  am  not  the 
right  one  to  ask  it.  I  dearly  love  the  good 
things  of  life;  I  delight  in  comforts  and 
luxuries.  I  have  had  my  full  share  of  them, 
and  trust  they  may  continue.  But  I  am  in 
[257] 


PERCOLATOR    PAPERS 

grave  doubt  as  to  the  earning  rights  of  my 
services. 

Your  indulgence  is  also  bespoken  for  another 
quality  that  crops  up  as  the  proofs  come  in. 
There  is  something  like  a  disposition  to  scold 
that  occasionally  appears  along  the  lines.  Of 
course  nobody  that  is  worth  his  salt  wants  to 
grin  and  giggle  in  vapid  content  in  a  world 
like  ours  which  is  strained  to  near  the  breaking- 
point  with  work  undone.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Sourbelly  is  a  nuisance  and  it  is  seldom 
he  is  of  real  use.  The  two  types  take  opposite 
sides  of  the  road  along  which  all  of  us  must 
wander.  Sometimes  we  veer  to  one  side 
and  sometimes  to  the  other.  As  we  grow  old 
we  are  likely  to  become  grouchy,  and  I  am 
no  more  young.  So  if  I  should  be  burdened 
with  years  beyond  my  capacity  to  work,  I 
have  been  considering  the  island  of  Jamaica 
for  the  finish,  so  as  to  avoid  inflicting  upon 
innocent  persons  the  footless  grumblings  of 
an  old  man.  Down  there  are  retired  majors 
and  colonels  who  have  seen  service  in  India. 
Some  of  them  have  liver  complaint,  and  they 
snort  their  fading  days  away.  With  them 
one  can  practise  reciprocity,  and  thus  save 
the  long-suffering  public  from  books  that 
depress  but  do  not  enlighten.  I  am,  however, 
in  no  hurry  to  secure  my  passage, 
[258]. 


PERCOLATOR   PAPERS 

Now  we  have  reached  the  fork  of  the  roads. 
I  pray  you  to  accept  my  thanks  for  your 
attention  and  indulgence  and  my  wish  that 
wisdom  and  peace  may  abide  with  you. 

E.  H. 
139  EAST  FORTIETH  STREET, 

New  York. 
May,  1919. 


THE    END 


DATE  DUE 


PMINTIOINU    S 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  442  659     9 


